David N. Beratan
Office: 5311 FFSC
Phone: (919) 660-1526
E-mail: 
Group Homepage
Research Interests
Dr. Beratan, R.J. Reynolds Professor of Chemistry, is exploring the molecular mechanisms that enable the function of
complex biological machines and molecular
materials. Recent advances from his
theoretical chemistry research group have
elucidated electron tunneling and hopping
pathways in proteins and DNA, have helped to
define the mechanism of energy transduction
in nitrogenase, and have established reliable
methods to compute the specific rotation
angles of chiral natural products. Additional
topics of investigation in Beratan's group
include the mechanism of transport in
conducting atomic force microscope
experiments and the inverse design of new materials. Beratan's group is also exploring new
approaches to teach undergraduate physical
chemistry.
Prof. Beratan is part of the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics , Nanosciences, and Phononics programs at Duke, and he holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Physics and Biochemistry.
Publications
Most recent publications in PubMed