NOBCChE Collaborative is proud to announce our Faculty Seminar Series. These seminars will highlight faculty’s scientific expertise and will cover a wide range of topics. Each seminar is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

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December 16th - Gabriela Schlau-Cohen, PhD

Title: Why don't plants get sunburn? 

Abstract: In green plants, chlorophyll-containing proteins known as light-harvesting complexes (LHCs) capture solar energy and feed it to downstream molecular machinery. Under high light (i.e., sunny days), excess absorbed energy can cause damage. Thus, LHCs have evolved a feedback loop that triggers photoprotective energy dissipation, solving the so-called “intermittency problem” in solar energy. A long-standing proposal has been that conformational changes of the LHCs activate dissipative photophysical pathways among the chlorophyll. First, we use single-molecule spectroscopy to identify the conformational states of the LHCs, uncovering parallel conformational dynamics that regulate fast and slow changes in sunlight. Second, we use 2D electronic spectroscopy to map out the corresponding photophysics, revealing dissipative chlorophyll-to-carotenoid energy transfer, a hypothesized yet previously unobserved pathway. Collectively, these multi-timescale measurements elucidate the multi-timescale dynamics of photoprotection.