W. John Van Patten

2023 Graduate Student Fellow

Faculty Advisor: Professor Carlos Bustamante

wjvanpatten@berkeley.edu

John is a 7th year Biophysics Ph.D. student in the Bustamante lab where he studies ribosomal translocation with optical tweezers. Before attending UC Berkeley, John received his B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Colorado Boulder where he used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to characterize protein-ligand interactions and the folding and unfolding of proteins and nucleic acids. John also received B.A. in Music with an emphasis in piano from the University of Colorado Boulder. In his free time, John enjoys playing piano and is an avid martial artist with a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo. 

Nature has evolved a wide range of highly energy-efficient molecular motors to perform important tasks such as replicating DNA and synthesizing RNA and proteins. The ribosome is a specific molecular machine that synthesizes proteins by a process called translation. Despite thorough structural and kinetic studies, the exact chemomechanical mechanism of the ribosome’s movement (translocation) along mRNA in single-codon steps is still debated. 

To address these challenges, John combines the molecular-motor tracking capabilities of high-spatial-resolution optical tweezers with single-molecule fluorescence detection (collectively called “fleezers”). Dual-trap optical tweezers allow for the monitoring of ribosomal stepping along an mRNA transcript at a spatial resolution of a single nanometer. The binding of fluorescently labeled elongation factors to the ribosome during processive translocation is monitored through confocal fluorescence microscopy. Understanding how naturally evolved nano-machines, like the ribosome, process chemical energy could guide the designing principles of synthetic nanomachines of the future.