Valerica Raicu

Research:

Professor Raicu's main research interests are:

•  Spectral fluorescence imaging, Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), and nonlinear optical microscopy for studying protein-protein interactions and protein complex structure and dynamics in vivo
•  Studies of the physical properties of heterogeneous systems, including biological cells and tissues, biomembranes, electrode/electrolyte interfaces, polymers, and colloidal systems
•  Dielectric and mechanical relaxation in biological and nonbiological systems
•  Nonlinear laser spectroscopy for probing reaction dynamics and mechanical and thermal relaxation in proteins

Biographical Sketch:

Valerica Raicu obtained his Physics Diploma in 1991 and his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1998, both from the University of Bucharest (Romania). During that time, he worked as a Research Scientist for the Institute of Physical Chemistry of Romanian Academy (1992-1996) and for Research & Design Institute for Rare and Radioactive Metals (1996-1998). The following three years he was a Research Instructor at the Department of Physiology at Kochi Medical School (Japan). In 2002 Raicu obtained a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Departments of Chemistry and Physics and Charles H. Best Institute, University of Toronto.

Since 2004, Raicu has been at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he holds the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences. Professor Raicu has developed a Biophysics course for which he also wrote the book Integrated Molecular and Cellular Biophysics (Springer, 2008). His research is currently supported by a UWM Research Foundation’s Catalyst Grant.

Selected publications:

• V. Raicu, M.R. Stoneman, R. Fung, M. Melnichuk, D.B. Jansma, S. Rath, L.F. Pisterzi, M. Fox, J.W. Wells, D.K. Saldin
  "Determination of supramolecular structure and spatial distribution of protein complexes in living cells"
  Nature Photonics 3 (2009) 107-113.
• M. Stoneman, M. Fox, C. Zeng, V. Raicu
  "Real-time monitoring of two-photon photopolymerization for use in fabrication of microfluidic devices for biological investigations"
  Lab Chip 9 (2009) 819-827.
• L.F. Pisterzi, D.B. Jansma, J. Georgiou, M.J. Woodside, J.T-C Chou, S. Angers, V. Raicu, J.W. Wells
  "Oligomeric size of the M2 muscarinic receptor in live cells as determined by quantitative FRET"
  Journal of Biological Chemistry (2010) in press
  (Published online, March 19, 2010)
• Deo R. Singh, V. Raicu
  "Comparison between whole-distribution- and average-based approaches to the determination of FRET efficiency in ensembles of proteins in living cells"
  Biophysical Journal (2010) in press
• M. Stoneman, A. Chaturvedi, D.B. Jansma, M. Kosempa, C. Zeng and V. Raicu
  "Protein influence on plasma membrane dielectric properties: in vivo study utilizing dielectric spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy"
  Bioelectrochemistry 70 (2007) 542–550.

• V. Raicu
  "Efficiency of resonance energy transfer in homo-oligomeric complexes of proteins"
  J. Biol. Phys. 33 (2007) 109-127

• V. Raicu
  "FRET-based determination of protein complex structure at nanometer length scale in living cells"
  In: A. Diaspro (Editor), Nanoscopy. Multidimensional Optical Fluorescence Microscopy, CRC Press (2010)
• V. Raicu, M. Schmidt, M. Stoneman
  "Structural dynamics and kinetics of myoglobin-CO binding: time-resolved X-ray diffraction and four-wave mixing"
  In: V. Yakovlev (Editor), Biochemical applications of nonlinear optical spectroscopy, CRC Press (2009)
• V. Raicu, A. Popescu
  "Integrated Molecular and Cellular Biophysics"
  Springer (2008)