Dr. George Barnes

Research Interests & Areas

My research focuses on modeling chemical reactions that occur in experimental tandem mass spectrometry, with a particular emphasis on elucidating the dissociation mechanisms of polypeptides. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal atomistic details concerning the reaction mechanism for peptide fragmentation in these high-energy collision systems. Graph theory is then employed to elucidate reaction mechanisms. In particular, the Barnes group has shown that proton motion and non-covalent complexes play a crucial role in the dynamics and the overall products formed during dissociation events.