Education

BSc. IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, 1989 

MSc. IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, 1991 

Ph.D. Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur University, India, 1997
Office: Phillips 452 
Telephone:715 836 2278 
Email:bhattas at uwec dot edu. 

Teaching Interests

Research Interests

Flavoenzymes: Modeling the effect of mutations on enzymatic processes. How enzymes accomplish precision in substrate recognition? How a mutation far away from the active site can have an important effect in enzyme catalysis?  How significant are the quantum mechanical effects in enzymatic processes such as catalysis, binding, and redox transitions?  I am interested in these questions and my research is focused on to the study of kinetic and thermodynamic properties of enzymes using computational methods. In these studies, quantum chemical calculations are carried out on a smaller part of molecules/analogs using higher level electronic energy calculations. These studies are then combined with hybrid quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical based biomolecular simulations to understand the role of protein environments on functional properties such as catalysis, substrate binding, and redox behaviors.

Computational electrochemistry: Studying redox behaviors of organic cofactors. I am interested in studying the effect of ring substitutions on flavin's redox properties. Flavins are 7,8, 10- substituted isoalloxazine ring. They are the main functional groups of biological cofactors FAD and riboflavin-5'-phospate. During electron transfer, flavin shuttles between reduced and oxidized states in enzymes. Fluctuations of their redox properties are a subject of lot of studies because of their potential applications in  biofuel cells (immobilized flavoenzymes) and biosensors (flavin self assembled monolayers tethered to metal surfaces).