PIOTR E. MARSZALEK
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Contact Information
3387 CIEMAS
919-660-5381 phone
919-660-8963 fax
pemar@duke.edu

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Education

	PhD	Kinetic Effects of the Interaction of Nonuniform Alternating Electric Fields upon Stratified Particles of Lossy Dielectric, Electrical Engineering, Electrotechnical Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland, 1991
	MS	Dielectrophoresis of Neurospora crassa cells, Physics/Biophysics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, 1985

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Experience

	2002-present	Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University
	1998-2002	Assistant Professor of Biophysics, Mayo Medical and Mayo Graduate School, Biomedical Engineering Track, Mayo Clinic and Foundation
	1996-2002	Associate Consultant, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Mayo Clinic and Foundation, Rochester, MN
	1991-2002	Adiunkt, Electrotechnical Institute/Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
	1993-1996	Research Fellow, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
	1992-1993	Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Biochemistry, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN
	1991-1992	Visiting Scientist, Saitama University, Urawa City, Japan
	1985-1991	Junior, then senior, research assistant in the Department of Fundamental Research in Electrotechnics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and of the Electrotechnical Institute, Warsaw, Poland
	1989-1990	Fulbright Fellow, Department of Biochemistry, University of Minnesota

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Selected Publications

1. Marszalek, P.E., Li, H., Oberhauser, A.F. & Fernandez, J.M. (2002). Chair-boat transitions in single polysaccharide molecules observed with force-ramp AFM. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). 99, 4278-4283.
2. Marszalek, P.E., Li, H. & Fernandez, J.M. (2001). Fingerprinting polysaccharides with single molecule AFM. Nature Biotechnology 19, 258-262.
3. Marszalek, P.E., Oberhauser, A.F., Pang, Y.-P., and Fernandez, J.M. (1998). Polysaccharide elasticity governed by chair-boat transitions of the glucopyranose ring. Nature, 396:661-664.
4. Marszalek, P.E., Pang, Y-P., Li, H., El Yazal, J., Oberhauser, A.F, and Fernandez, J.M. (1999). Atomic levers control pyranose ring conformations. PNAS, 96:7894-7898.
5. Marszalek, P.E., Lu, H., Li, H., Carrion-Vazquez, M., Oberhauser, A.F., Schulten, K., and Fernandez, J.M. (1999). Mechanical unfolding intermediates in titin modules. Nature, 402:100-103.
6. Marszalek, P.E., Greenleaf, W.J., Li, H., Oberhauser, A.F., Fernandez, J.M. (2000). AFM captures quantized plastic deformations in gold nanowires. PNAS 97:6282-6286.
7. Oberhauser, A.F., Marszalek, P.E., Carrion-Vazquez, M., and Fernandez, J.M. (1999). Single proteins misfolding events captured by AFM. Nature Structural Biology, 6:1025-1028.
8. Oberhauser, A.F., Marszalek, P.E., Erickson, H.P., and Fernandez, J.M. (1998). The molecular elasticity of tenascin, an extracellular matrix protein. Nature, 393:181-185.
9. Carrion-Vazquez, M., Marszalek, P.E., Oberhauser, A.F., and Fernandez, J.M. (1999). AFM captures length phenotypes in single proteins. PNAS, 96: 11288-11292.
10. Fisher, T.E., Marszalek, P.E. & Fernandez, J.M. (2000). Stretching single molecules into novel conformations using the atomic force microscope. Nature Struct. Biol. 7, 719-724.

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Short Research Interest Descriptor

Mechanics of conformational transitions in single biopolymer molecules by Atomic Force Microscopy and computational approaches (ab initio, MD).

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Research Interest

Mechanical properties of single molecules are of utmost importance in biology and nanotechnology. I am interested in plastic and elastic deformations in biopolymers. Of particular interest to me are the elastic properties of single biopolymers such as polysaccharides, proteins and DNA which play critical structural, functional and hereditary roles in living organisms. My main experimental methodology is atomic force microscopy (AFM) that allows us to mechanically manipulate single molecules. We model mechanical properties of molecules using quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics methodologies. Because of its unique ability to identify individual biopolymers in solution, the AFM technology promises to be an important addition to the arsenal of analytical techniques used in biopolymer research and biotechnology.

 

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