Photon Science Seminar: "P450s, Photons, and Pixels: Mapping Enzyme Dynamics Across Space, Time, and Data," Alec Vollmer, UC Davis

Abstract
Cytochrome P450 enzymes catalyze essential metabolic reactions with a chemical precision that remains difficult to explain from static structures alone. Their function emerges from dynamic conformational ensembles, transient intermediates, and electronically complex active sites. In this seminar, I will present recent efforts to probe P450 catalysis using multimodal X-ray methods at SLAC, including (time-resolved) crystallography and X-ray emission spectroscopy, to capture structural and electronic changes during reaction. I will also discuss how emerging machine learning approaches can be utilized to improve our analysis of X-ray diffraction data across experiments, enabling new ways to identify hidden states and connect structure to function. 

Short Bio

Alec Follmer is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at UC Davis and a Visiting Physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. His research
focuses on understanding how electronic structure and protein dynamics jointly govern catalysis of metal-containing enzymes with an emphasis on their allosteric regulation using a combination of X-ray methods and machine learning. His group develops and deploys new experimental and computational approaches to capture transient states and uncover the physical basis of enzyme function.