Diwakar Shukla’s research group develops and employs computational chemistry approaches to decipher the mechanisms of regulation of protein function, which play a critical role in governing cellular and organismal behavior. Shukla’s group develops computational and theoretical methods to enable the investigation of long-timescale processes associated with the regulation of biological systems. Their research is addressing fundamental questions about the three critical modes of regulation in the field of regulatory molecular biology, especially in regards to membrane proteins, and developing methods to enable the computational investigation of these systems in atomistic detail. Shukla’s research has numerous applications in the fields of food-security (regulation of photosynthetic machinery), environment (transporters for the regulation of water and fertilizer use-efficiency in plants), and human health (mechanisms and regulation of key proteins involved in cancer and mental health disorders).
Shukla earned his bachelor’s degree at the Indiana Institute of Technology before receiving his master’s and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After completing postdoctoral research at Stanford University, Shukla joined the University of Illinois. He is the Blue Waters Assistant Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.