Joze Grdadolnik

Born: 1961, 14th of May, married, two children, daughter Urška and son Matic Jože Education -Diploma (Physics), Faculty of mathematics and physics, University of Ljubljana 1987 -M.Sc. Chemistry, University of Ljubljana 1990 -Ph.D. Chemistry, University of Ljubljana 1994 Employment -1987- National Institute of Chemistry -Post-doc 1997-1998 prof. Yves Maréchal, Grenoble, France -Partial employment 2007-2010 Faculty for Applied Sciences, University of Nova Gorica -Partial employment 2010-2014 EN-FIST Centre of Excellence Scholarship -1982-1987 National Institute of Chemistry -1997-1998 (CEA, CRE) Paris, France Teaching 2007-2013 assistant Prof. (physics) 2013-2019 associate Prof. (physics), 2019 Prof. (physics),University of Nova Gorica, Faculty for Applied Sciences I lecture three courses: o Molecular spectroscopy, o Optics and optical instruments o Analytical and research methods in functional and structural biology Visiting prof. 2013 University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, 2013, 3 months Membership in editorial boards (2019- ): Biochemical and biophysical research Mentorship I have been a mentor of three diploma works, two masters and four Ph.D. theses. Membership in council o member of the Senate of the Faculty for Applied Sciences (2008- 2016) o vice president of Scientific council (National Institute of Chemistry) 2018- o member of the council of CRP (Slovenian research Agency) (2006-2010) o member of the council of Knowledge for Security and Peace (2006-2010) o member of the council of Competitive Position of Slovenia (2006-2013) Scientific interest: o vibrational spectroscopy (infrared, Raman, VCD) o structure and dynamics of biomolecules (lipids, peptide, proteins, IDP) o misfolding and aggregation of proteins o hydration mechanisms of biomolecules o noncovalent interactions (hydrogen bond, hydrophobic interaction) The main scientific interest lies in the application of vibrational spectroscopy (both infrared and Raman) in the resolving of the structure and dynamics of biomolecules. My experimental knowledge retrieved from many years spent in the laboratory working on various mainly biological systems is supported by the knowledge of modern chemometric methods and quantum mechanical calculations. I started my scientific career by studying specific interactions of lipids by applying vibrational and NMR spectroscopy. In these studies, quantum mechanical calculations were also included. With the application of the new method of spectral decomposition, the configuration interactions of hydrating water molecules with host molecules were determined in the lipid and protein systems. These investigations were upgraded by the research of the structure and dynamics of peptides and proteins. The structure was studied by exploiting the amide I and amide III bands, where dynamic information was retrieved from the H/D exchange experiments. We (with coworkers), for the first time, have resolved the structures of 19 dipeptides in aqueous solution by application of vibrational and NMR spectroscopy. We employed the vicinal coupling constants and the structure of amide I and amide III bands to prove the hypothesis that preferential conformations of dipeptides depend on the side chains (PNAS, 2006). Later, the presence of three conformations was demonstrated: the PII, β, and the αR, which concurs with the predictions of Ramachandran. We proved that the Ramachandran plot is valid also for dipeptides and not, as originally proposed by the author, only for proteins. The results were published in a high ranking scientific journal (PNAS, 2011). In 2017 we published also in PNAS the first experimental evidence for the formation of stronger hydrogen bonds between water molecules induced by the presence of fully hydrophobic molecules such as methane, ethane xenon and krypton. Parallel to the investigations of biologically important molecules I have studied the spectral characteristic of the hydrogen bond, which represents the most important non-covalent interaction in biochemistry. I have investigated the physical and spectrall characteristics of hydrogen bonds on small model molecules, which enables the application of theoretical quantum mechanical treatment.