Office: CAP 0.25 Email: s.meech@uea.ac.uk Tel: +44(0) 1603-593141 School Positions: Professor of Chemistry; Member, Research Committee; Chair of Examiners.

PhD Studentships available:
Ultrafast Dynamics in Photoactive Proteins
What's So Special About 'Biological Water'

Chemistry in the condensed phase is characterised by rapidly fluctuating intermolecular interactions leading to structural and chemical change. Our group is interested in experimentally characterising these changes through the methods of ultrafast laser spectroscopy.

Molecular dynamics in the liquid state are probed through non-resonant transient polarisability relaxation (e.g. optical Kerr effect).  Recent projects include characterisation of low frequency modes in electrolytes and molecular dynamics in aqueous peptide solutions.  We apply similar methods to probe complex fluids, including liquids under an applied stress.

Excited state chemistry is particularly informative in understanding reaction dynamics in solution, because the reaction can be initiated on an ultrafast timescale and probed with high sensitivity through flruorescence spectroscopy and transient absorption. Our excited state chemistry programme is focused in two area, the photophyics of fluorescent proteins, such as GFP and reaction dynamics in spatially confined media, including micelles and porous solids.

Biography Prof. Meech has been at UEA since 1994. He held posts as visiting scientist at RIKEN, Japan and a JSPS and Inoue Foundation Fellow at IMS in Japan. He was an EPSRC fellow at The University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Selected Publications

I. A. Heisler and S. R. Meech ‘Low Frequency Modes of Aqueous Alkali Halide Solutions: Glimpsing the Hydrogen Bond Vibration’.  
Science, 2010, 327, 857 – 860.
DOI: 10.1126/science.1183799

M. Kondo, I. A. Heisler, D. Stoner-Ma, P. J. Tonge and S. R. Meech ‘Ultrafast Dynamics of Protein Proton Transfer on the Short Hydrogen Bond Potential Energy Surface: S65T/H148D GFP’.
J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132, 1452 – 53 (Cover Feature).
DOI: 10.1021/ja907690g

S. R. Meech ‘Excited State Reaction in Fluorescent Proteins’.  
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2009, 38, 2922 - 2934 (Invited Review)
DOI: 10.1039/b820168b

I. A. Heisler, M. Kondo and S. R. Meech ‘Reactive Dynamics in Confined Liquids: Ultrafast Torsional Dynamics of Auramine O in Nanoconfined Water in Reverse Micelles’.
J. Phys. Chem. B 2009, 113, 1623-31
DOI: 10.1021/jp808989f

J. Nappa, A. Stelling, K. L. Ronayne P. J. Tonge and S. R. Meech, ‘Ultrafast Structural Dynamics in BLUF Domains: Transient Infrared Spectroscopy of AppA and its Mutants’ .
J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 15556-64. 
DOI: 10.1021/ja074074n

D. Stoner-Ma, A. A. Jaye, K. L . Ronayne, J. Nappa, S. R. Meech and P. J. Tonge ‘An Alternate Proton Acceptor for Excited State Protein Transfer in Green Fluorescent Protein: Rewiring GFP’.
J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 1227-1235. 
DOI: 10.1021/ja0754507