Catherine Murphy, Larry R. Faulkner Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Head of the Department of Chemistry, will lecture on “Nanoparticles (potentially) on the Brain: Towards Detection or Therapy of Neurodegenerative Disease with Gold Nanocrystals” at 4:00pm in 2269 Beckman Institute and on Zoom. Samuel Okyem, MBM Trainee and PhD candidate in Chemistry, will provide an introduction.
The lecture is free and open to the public courtesy of the Miniature Brain Machinery Program.
Abstract:
Alpha-synuclein is a protein whose aggregation and fibrilization is implicated in Parkinson’s Disease, although its native function is not well understood. It is known that alpha-synuclein binds to small phospholipid vesicles and undergoes a conformational change to a more alpha-helical form; it is also known that the fibrils of this protein found in the brains of Parkinson’s patients are in the beta-sheet form.
In this talk I will describe results from my laboratory in which we use gold nanocrystals of controllable size and surface chemistry as a phospholipid vesicle mimic as substrates for alpha-synuclein binding and conformational change. Gold nanocrystals have been extensively used as imaging agents and photothermal therapy agents due to their plasmonic properties, mostly in the context of cancer; whether these properties can be translated successfully to neurodegenerative disease remains to be seen.
Bio:
Catherine Murphy received two BS degrees, one in chemistry and one in biochemistry, from the University of Illinois in 1986. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1990. From 1990-1993, she was first an NSF and then an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. From 1993-2009 Professor Murphy was a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. In August 2009 she joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois.
Murphy’s research interests include synthesis, properties, chemical sensing, biological applications and environmental implications of colloidal inorganic nanomaterials.
The Murphy Lab’s research is at the interface of materials chemistry, inorganic chemistry, biophysical chemistry and nanotechnology. Their primary goal is to develop inorganic nanomaterials for biological and energy-related applications, and understand the chemical interactions of these nanomaterials with their surroundings. A diverse range of projects are currently pursued in the group: inorganic nanoparticle fabrication and functionalization; cellular imaging, chemical sensing, and photothermal therapy using gold nanorods; environmental implications of nanoparticles.
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