Contact Information
myerscou@illinois.edu
(217) 300-4463
Department of Chemistry
University of Illinois
350 O NL, Box 5-6
600 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Areas
Biography
Professor Gruebele received his B.S. degree in 1984, and his Ph.D. in 1988, both from the University of California at Berkeley. After working as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1992. Dr. Gruebele is also a faculty member of the Beckman Institute.
Research Interests
time-resolved spectro-microscopy of biological systems from in vitro to in-cell to in vivo; protein and RNA folding; protein-polymer dynamics at surfaces; complex molecular systems studied by computational theory from molecular dynamics to quantum dynamics; single-particle spectroscopy detected by scanning tunneling microscopy; locomotion behavior studies; nanomaterials structure and dynamics
Research Description
The Gruebele Group is engaged in experiments and computational modeling to study a broad range of fundamental problems in chemical and biological physics. A common theme in these experiments is the implementation of state-of-the-art laser techniques to interrogate and manipulate complex molecular systems, coupled with quantum or classical simulations. The results of these efforts are contributing to a deeper understanding of the way that proteins fold into functional 3-dimensional molecules, the details of how chemical bonds are broken by vibrational motion and how this can be controlled, and the switching of energy flow in large molecular structures on surfaces.
Awards and Honors
Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry (American Chemical Society), 2026
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, multiple entries between 1993-2024
Hans Neurath Award (Protein Society), 2020
TREE Award (Research Corporation), 2018
Nakanishi Prize (ACS and The Chemical Society of Japan), 2017
SEED Award (Research Corporation), 2016
Fellow of the American Chemical Society, 2015
Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 2013
Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010
Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences, 2008
Member, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, 2008
Fellow of the Biophysical Society, 2006
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Prize, von Humboldt Society, 2005
Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2002
Coblentz Award, Coblentz Society, 1999
Dreyfus New Faculty Award
NSF National Young Investigator Award
Sloan Fellow
Cottrell Scholar
Packard Fellow
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Physics
Professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Professor, Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology
CAS Professor, Center for Advanced Study
Professor, Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Recent Publications
Bian, Z., Gomez, E., Gruebele, M., Levine, B. G., Link, S., Mehmood, A., & Nie, S. (2025). Bottom-up carbon dots: purification, single-particle dynamics, and electronic structure. Chemical Science, 16(10), 4195-4212. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sc05843g
Bian, Z., Gomez, E., Ren, J., Chatterjee, T., Yang, H., Schroeder, C. M., Nie, S., Link, S., & Gruebele, M. (2025). Ultrathin Atomically Flat Gold Film for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Single-Particle Fluorescence Spectroscopy. Langmuir, 41(25), 16000-16008. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c01097
Firouzbakht, A., De, A., & Gruebele, M. (2025). Context-dependent effect of polyethylene glycol on the structure and dynamics of hirudin. Biophysical journal, 124(1), 192-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2024.11.3311
Gomez, E., Mehmood, A., Bian, Z., Lee, S. A., Tauzin, L. J., Adhikari, S., Gruebele, M., Levine, B. G., & Link, S. (2025). Single-Particle Correlated Imaging Reveals Multiple Chromophores in Carbon Dot Fluorescence. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 147(21), 17784-17794. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c01367
Jäger, M., Mortenson, D. E., Ardejani, M. S., Kline, G. M., Dendle, M. T., Yan, N. L., Powers, E. T., Gruebele, M., & Kelly, J. W. (2025). Lysine carbamoylation during urea denaturation remodels the energy landscape of human transthyretin dissociation linked to unfolding. Protein Science, 34(4), Article e70009. https://doi.org/10.1002/pro.70009