FORA.tv Speaker - Carlos Bustamante

Bustamante is professor of molecular and cell biology, physics, and chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he has held since 1998. He received his B.S. degree from Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, his masters in biochemistry from San Marcos University, and his Ph.D. degree in biophysics from UC Berkeley, where he studied with Ignacio Tinoco, Jr. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Bustamante studied with Marc Maestre. Before moving to Berkeley, he was an HHMI investigator at the University of Oregon.

Carlos Bustamante uses novel methods of single-molecule visualization, such as scanning force microscopy, to study the structure and function of nucleoprotein assemblies. His laboratory is developing methods of single-molecule manipulation, such as optical tweezers, to characterize the elasticity of DNA, to induce the mechanical unfolding of individual protein molecules, and to investigate the machine-like behavior of molecular motors.