Comstock Lab

Matt has had a broad and diverse scientific career. He began as a summer high school lab assistant in a plant virology lab (with Les Lane) and then a non-linear optics lab (with Stephen Ducharme) both at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. As an undergrad at Chicago he investigated anti-matter in the cosmos in the high-energy astrophysics groups of Dietrich Mueller and Simon Swordy. At Berkeley he got small and was the first to directly observe individual photomechanically switching molecular machines using scanning tunneling microscopy in the lab of Michael Crommie. During his postdoc at UIUC with Yann Chemla and Taekjip Ha, Matt transitioned to investigating biophysical molecular machines building a new cutting-edge single-molecule instrument that combined high-resolution optical tweezers with single-molecule fluorescence microscopy. With this new technique he observed DNA helicases moving along and unwinding DNA and switching conformations and directions at the same time. In August 2012, Matt joined the faculty at MSU.

Selected publications:

• E. M. Patrick, J. D. Slivka, B. Payne, M. J. Comstock,* and Jens C. Schmidt*. “Mechanism of processive telomerase catalysis revealed by high-resolution optical tweezers,” Nature Chemical Biology, 16, 801 (2020). *Co-corresponding authors. 
• C.-Y. Chuang, M. Zammit, M. L. Whitmore, and M. J. Comstock. “Combined high-resolution optical tweezers and multicolor single-molecule fluorescence with automated single molecule assembly line,” Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 123, 9612 (2019). 
• D. Izadi*, Y. Chen*, M. L. Whitmore, J. D. Slivka, K. Ching, L. J. Lapidus and M. J. Comstock. “Combined force ramp and equilibrium high-resolution investigations reveal multi-path heterogeneous unfolding of Protein G,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 122, 11155 (2018). 
• E. M. Patrick, Sukanya Srinivasan, Eckhard Jankowsky, and M. J. Comstock. “The RNA Helicase Mtr4p is a Duplex Sensing Translocase.”Nature Chemical Biology, 13, 99 (2017).
• M. J. Comstock, K. D. Whitley, H. Jia, J. Sokoloski, T. M. Lohman, Taekjip Ha, and Y. R. Chemla. “Direct observation of structure-function relationship in a nucleic acid-processing enzyme,” Science, 348, 352 (2015).
• M. J. Comstock, Taekjip Ha, and Y. R. Chemla. “Ultrahigh-resolution optical trap with single-fluorophore sensitivity,” Nature Methods, 8, 335 (2011).
• M. J. Comstock, N. Levy, A. Kirakosian, J. W. Cho, F. Lauterwasser, J. H. Harvey, D. A. Strubbe, J. M. J. Fréchet, D. Trauner, S. G. Louie and M. F. Crommie. "Reversible photomechanical switching of individual engineered molecules at a surface," Physical Review Letters, 99, 038301 (2007).