AZƏRBAYCAN RESPUBLİKASININ ELM VƏ TƏHSİL NAZİRLİYİ Bakı Dövlət Universiteti

Established in 2019, the Biophysics Department originated from the "Molecular Biophysics" group and the "Physics of Biological Systems" department within the Institute's Theoretical Physics Department. The Molecular Biophysics Research Laboratory was initially founded in 1980 by order of the USSR Committee of Science and Technology and was integrated into the Theoretical Physics Department of the Research Institute of Physics Problems in 2005. The department's team achieved a world-first by calculating the spatial structure of a trypsin inhibitor protein with 58 amino acid residues using theoretical conformational analysis and examining enzyme-substrate and enzyme-inhibitor interactions. They have also explored the spatial structures and structure-function relationships of various molecules, including enkephalin, endorphin, neoendorphin, dynorphin, adrenorphin, melanotropin, glucagon, secretin, sleep peptides, cardioactive peptide, peptide T, dermorphin, deltorphin, immunoglobulin, octarphin, exorphin, and more. The team developed a versatile program for analyzing the spatial structures of biomolecules and molecular complexes. This program has been utilized by prominent scientific centers of the Russian Academy of Sciences, including the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, the Institute of Molecular Biology, the Leningrad Mechanical Institute, the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences. Research within the department focuses on the interactions and structural issues in biological systems and liquid crystals. The department studies changes in interactions and structures in biological systems under various external influences (such as water-soluble polymers, low- molecular-weight compounds, liquid crystals, temperature, ozone, and various external fields). Polymer-water biphasic systems serve as models for processes in biological systems, and thermodynamic analysis of these systems' phase diagrams helps calculate the polymer-solvent interaction parameter that defines the conformation of high-molecular-weight compounds. The department's scientific findings have been published in prestigious journals like J. Chim. Phys. (France), Int. J. Peptide Protein Res. (USA), Eastern Medical Journal, Asian Journal of Chemistry, J. Molecular Structure (UK), Current Topics in Peptide and Protein Research (India), IOSR Journal of Applied Physics (Japan), International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, J. Regulatory Peptide, Biopolymers, CrystEngComm, and others, and have been presented at numerous scientific conferences. Research Subject: Investigating structure-function relationships of biologically active molecules. Examining the impact of small solid particles of various substances on liquid crystals and biological systems. Objectives: Synthesizing new medicinal substances that perform specific functions based on the spatial structures of biomolecules. Analyzing processes in liquid crystals affected by submicron and nanoscale particles of various substances and developing composites with diverse functional properties based on these analyses.