The University of Chicago

Viviana Monje-Galvan

Postdoctoral Scholar
Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago

vmonje@uchicago.edu

I came to the US tweleve years ago and started my undergraduate studies at Montgomery College, Maryland. I got my Bachelor’s, MS, and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, where I worked in the Molecular Dynamics Lab under Dr. Jeffery Klauda’s mentorship. The focus of my work has been on understanding the interactions among lipids in symmetric and asymmetric membrane models as well as the interaction of these models with peripheral proteins using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. Additionally, I studied the molecular level details of the disruption of the water-oil interface in the presence of tert-butanol, a typical hydrotrope molecule. I have been TA in several undergraduate classes, among which are thermodynamics, statistics, molecular modeling (simulations).  I always enjoy a good book (paperback) and playing the guitar.

Research Interests
While in the Voth group I will study protein-membrane and protein-protein interactions using both all-atom and coarse-grain molecular dynamics and enhanced sampling techniques. The overall goal is to understand the binding mechanism of the matrix (MA) domain in Gag proteins of HIV-1 to model membranes, and its regulatory relationship in the context of viral infection. I will also be involved in the development of CG models using the bottom-up approach and multiscale theory methods in the context of protein-membrane interactions.

Publications

  1. Galvan-Monjee V, Voth GA. Binding Mechanism of the Matrix Domain of HIV-1 Gag to Lipid Membranes. eLife . 2020 ;9.
  2. Leonard, A.N.; Wang, E.; Monje-Galvan, V.; Klauda, J.B. Developing and testing of lipid force fields with applications to modeling cellular membranes. Chem. Rev. 2018 (In Press) DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev/8b00384
  3. Wildermuth, K.; Monje-Galvan, V.; Klauda, J.B. Effect of membrane lipid packing on the stable binding of the ALPS peptide. J. Comp. Theo. Chem., 15(2):1418-1429 (2019)
  4. Monje-Galvan, V.; Warburton, L; Klauda, J.B. Setting-up all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to study the interactions of peripheral membrane proteins with model lipid bilayers in Methods in Molecular Biology Series. Intracellular Lipid Transport. Guillaume Drin, Ed. Springer, (2019)
  5.  Monje-Galvan, V.; Klauda, J.B. Preferred binding mechanism of Osh4 ’s lipid-packing sensor motif, insights from molecular dynamics. J. Phys. Chem. B., 122(42): 9713-9723 (2018)
  6. Novikov, A; Semenov, A.; Monje-Galvan, V.; Kuryakov, V.; Klauda, J.B.; Anisimov, M. Dual action of hydrotropes at the water/oil interface. J. Phys. Chem. C, 121(30): 16423-16431. (2017)
  7. Monje-Galvan,  V.;  Klauda,  J.B. Two sterols, two bilayers: Insights on Membrane Structure from Molecular Dynamics. Molecular Simulation. (July 2017)
  8. Khakbaz, P; Monje-Galvan, V.; Zhuang, X.; Klauda, J.B. Modeling Lipid Membranes in Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology Series. Biogenesis of Fatty Acids, Lipids and Membranes. Otto Geiger, Ed. Springer, (2016)
  9. Boughter,  C.T.;  Monje-Galvan,  V.; Im, W.; Klauda,  J.B. Influence of Cholesterol on Phospholipid Bilayer Structure and Dynamics. J. Phys. Chem. B., 120(45): 11761-11772. (2016)
  10. Monje-Galvan,  V.;  Klauda,  J.B.  2016.  Peripheral  Membrane Proteins: Tying the Knot between Experiment and Computation. BBA: Biomembranes, 1858: 1584-1593 (2016).
  11. Monje-Galvan, V.; Klauda, J.B. 2015. Modeling Yeast Organelle Membranes and How Lipid Diversity influences Bilayer Properties. Biochemistry. 54(45), 6852-6861 (2015).
  12. Wu, E.L.; Cheng, X.; Jo, S.; Rui, H.; Song, K.C.; Davila-Contreras, E.M.; Qi, Y.; Lee, J.; Monje-Galvan, V.; Venable, R.M.; Klauda, J.B.; Im, W. CHARMM_GUI Membrane Builder toward Realistic Biological Membrane Simulations. J. Comput. Chem. 35(27), 1997-2004 (2014).
  13. Jeong, J.C.; Jo, S.; Wu, E.L.; Qi, Y.; Monje-Galvan, V.; Yeom, M.S.; Gorenstein, L.; Chen, F.; Klauda, J.B.; Im, W. ST-Analyzer:  A web-based user interface for simulation trajectory analysis. J. Comput. Chem. 35(12), 957-963 (2014).
  14. Klauda, J.B.; Monje, V.; Kim, T.; Im, W. Improving the CHARM Force Field for Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Chains. J. Phys. Chem. B. 116(31), 9424-9431 (2012).