Dr. Christian A.M. Wilson was trained as a Biochemist and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Chile, Chile in 2011. CW permorfed a posdoctoral training at University of California, Berkeley, USA with Dr. Carlos Bustamante and Dr. Susan Marqusee (2011-2013). He then joined the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Chile in 2013, where he is currently an Assistent Professor at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department. His laboratory focuses in single molecule manipulation of biomolecules. This area is a new field of research and allows studying the effect of the forces on the structure of proteins and the concomitant changes in their function. It also permits to determine the forces and torques developed in the course of the mechanochemical conversion in molecular motors. Inside the cell, mechanical forces are produced in molecular processes as diverse as transcription, replication, translation, chromosomal segregation, protein unfolding, translocation of proteins across the membranes and cellular movement. Now, their work is focused in determining the importance of the force associated to the domain movements of BiP (immunoglobulin heavy-chain binding protein) protein during protein translocation in the ER in a collaboration with Randy Schekman´s group, also focusing in the kinetic properties of BiP and in the conformational changes that occur during its ATPase cycle, as it is working in the translocation process. Dr. Wilson lab has assembled the first optical tweezers instrument to measure force in individual molecules in the country.
