Régis Pomès
Associate Professor
PhD, University of Houston, 1993
Postdoc, Université de Montréal, 1996
Postdoc, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1999
Address | PGCRL Room 21.9713 Hospital for Sick Children 686 Bay St Toronto, ON M5G 0A4 |
Lab | Pomès Lab |
Lab Phone | 416-813-6855 |
Office Phone | 416-813-5686 |
pomes@sickkids.ca |
Régis Pomès obtained his PhD in theoretical chemistry with Andy McCammon, specialising in computer simulations of biomolecular systems. He then worked on the molecular mechanism of proton translocation in ion channels as a postdoc with Benoît Roux, before broadening his expertise in computational biophysics in the group of Ángel García at Los Alamos. In 1999 he moved to Toronto, where he has enjoyed developing an exciting collaborative research programme with a team of talented students and postdocs. He is interested in the development of computer simulation techniques and their application to studies of ion permeation in membrane proteins, protein-lipid interactions, as well as a broad range of problems pertaining to the solvation, binding, and aggregation of proteins in folded or disordered states.
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Research Lab

Learn more: Pomès Lab
Research Description
Computational Studies of Biomolecular Structure and Function
The Pomès group specializes in the development of computational methods and their application to the study of biological processes. In particular, we seek to uncover the link between the structure, dynamics, and function of proteins. Our work is grounded in statistical mechanics, which provides a formal connection between microscopic and macroscopic length scales. We use computer simulations of molecular models to glean mechanistic insight at spatial and temporal resolutions that are difficult to attain experimentally. More specifically, we study systems of biological relevance with atomistic resolution over time scales extending from the femtosecond to the microsecond and beyond—9 to 11 orders of magnitude over which many important biological processes occur at the molecular level.
We are interested in elucidating the physical basis for the structure and function of membrane proteins and in a variety of problems pertaining to protein folding, binding, and self-aggregation.
Awards & Distinctions
2001-2011 — Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Physical Chemistry
Courses Taught
BCH 2107H Introduction to Biomolecular Simulations
BCH 2105H Cystic Fibrosis: The Cause, The Treatment
BCH 2024H Introduction to Biomolecular Simulations
JBB2026H Protein Structure, Folding and Design
BCH473Y Advanced Research Project in Biochemistry
BCH422H Membrane Proteins: Structure and Function
Publications
View all publications on PubMed
Modification and periplasmic translocation of the biofilm exopolysaccharide poly-β-1,6-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine
Little DJ, Li G, Ing C, DiFrancesco BR, Bamford NC, Robinson H, Nitz M, Pomès R, Howell PL
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 111:11013-11018 (2014) Read
Indolicidin Binding Induces Thinning of a Lipid Bilayer
Neale C, Hsu JCY, Yip CM, Pomès R
Biophys. J. 106:L29-31 (2014) Read
Catalysis of Na+ Permeation in Bacterial Sodium Channel NavAb
Chakrabarti N, Ing C, Payandeh J, Zheng N, Catterall WA, Pomès R
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 110:11331-11336 (2013) Read
Construction and Validation of a Homology Model of the Human Voltage-Gated Proton Channel hHv1
Kulleperuma K, Smith SME, Morgan D, Musset B, Holyoake J, Chakrabarti N, Cherny VV, DeCoursey TE, Pomès R
J. Gen. Physiol. 141:445-465 (2013) Read
Structural investigations of the magnesium transport system CorA point to sequential allosteric regulation
Pfoh R, Li A, Chakrabarti N, Payandeh J, Pomès R, Pai EF
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109:18809-18814 (2012) Read
Structural Disorder and Protein Elasticity
Rauscher S, Pomès R
Adv Exp Med Biol. 725:159-83 (2012) Read
The Structure of Saposin A Lipoprotein Discs
Popovic K, Holyoake J, Pomès R, Privé GG
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109:2908-2912 (2012) Read
Statistical Convergence of Equilibrium Properties in Simulations of Molecular Solutes Embedded in Lipid Bilayers
Neale C, Bennett WFD, Tieleman DP, Pomès R
J. Chem. Theory Comput. 7:4175–4188 (2011)
Molecular Mechanism of β-Sheet Self-Organization at Water-Hydrophobic Interfaces
Nikolic A, Rauscher S, Baud S, Pomès R
Proteins 79:1-22 (2011) Read
Simulated Tempering Distributed Replica Sampling, Virtual Replica Exchange, and Other Generalized-Ensemble Methods for Enhanced Conformational Sampling
Rauscher S, Neale C, Pomès R
J. Chem. Theory Comput. 5:2640-2662 (2009)