Synthetic Chemical Biology: Reconstituting Selected Processes in Membranes and Lipoproteins

Dr. Parikh is Professor of Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of California, Davis. His current research interests include membrane bioengineering, membrane biophysics, organic-inorganic materials, and general soft condensed matter.

Research interests:

Invite talk:

Speaker: Atul N. Parikh, Ph. D.

Host: Prof. Chien Chou (光電所周晟教授 ) Graduate Institute of Electro-Optical EngineeringTime: 14:00-15:00, Nov. 16th 2011, WednesdayVenues:Conference Room 3, Library (圖書館五樓第三放映室 )

Membrane biioengineering:Use of light to pattern lateral fluidity of phospholipid membranes (Wet Membrane Photolithography) toward the design of membrane and membrane-protein microarrays for technological applications;

Structure, Assembly, and Dynamics of Lipid Membranes:

(a) Understanding and controlling membrane fluidity using engineered biomembranes (b) Templating bilayer structures (e.g., monolayer/bilayer motif, 1D and 2D curvatures, engineered phase separation) using chemically and topologically textured substrates;

Functional Consequences of Membrane Dynamics

(a) Understanding membrane deformations following particle adhesion;(b) Use of supported membranes to understand membrane-membrane fusion;(c) Functional Dynamics in phospholipid Media (protein-membrane interactions, protein aggregation);(d) role of membrane microenvironments in regulating ion-channel functions;

lipid bilayers as reactive-diffusive media

for studying chemistry in confinement, effects of dimensionality on phase behavior; and understanding nucleation, and growth supported by dynamic templates.

Dissecting Cell-surface Interactions using model systems

(a) The use of model membranes, in conjunction with cellular assaults, to understand the plasma membrane dynamics during cellular apoptosis (NSF- Center for Biophotonics);(b) The use of model membranes to understand the interactions between nutritional lipoproteins with vascular endothelium

Co-operative Processes in Surfactant-templated silica mesophases:

(a) Understanding the cooperativity of surfactant self-assembly and silica polymerization to delineate mesophase formation using vibrational spectroscopies;(b) Mesophase calcination at room-temperature using UV light to designed spatial patterns of porosities in thin-film silica mesophases

Switchable nanomaterials for sensing. A synthetic polypeptide approach

Dr. Liedberg is Professor of Division of Materials Technology at the Nanyang Technological University. His current research includes surface chemistry and self assembled monolayers, bioinspired and biomimetic nanoscience, and optical biosensors, micro- and nanoarrays.

Research interests:

Invite talk:

Speaker: Bo G. Liedberg, Ph. D.

Host: Prof. Jin-Chung Chen (陳景宗教授 ) Healthy Aging Research Center (健康老化中心 )Time: 10:00-12:00, Nov. 17th 2011, ThusdayVenues:2F Conference,The 1st Medicine Building (第一醫學大樓二樓會議室 )

Surface Chemistry and Self Assembled Monolayers

This part of the research concerns fundamental studies of adsorbates and ultrathin molecular architectures, like Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs), on solid supports. The group was very early in studying self-assembly of substituted alkylthiols on gold substrates. A key activity has been to study temperature driven phenomena occurring in such assemblies as well as in adsorbed layers on top such SAMs. Oligo(ethylene glycol) and oligosaccharide SAMs have attracted considerable attention, both experimentally and theoretically, because of their structural characteristics and advantageous properties in contact with biofluids. Another area concerns interfacial water and ice. Temperature programmed studies have been undertaken to improve the understanding of the nucleation and microscopic wetting behavior of water/ice. The complexity of the SAMs has increased over the years and we are today focusing on architectures based on SAMs bearing multivalent chelator heads, helix-loop-helix polypeptides and receptor functions.

Bioinspired and Biomimetic Nanoscience

This research concerns the development of nanoscale architectures fabricated using either top-down or bottom-up protocols (or a combination of both). We are, for example, developing plasmonic arrays based on 100 nm gold nano dots on silicon and glass surface for amplification of optical fluorescence signals, so-called metal enhanced fluorescence (MEF). We are also developing composite materials based on a combination of de novo designed peptide scaffolds, planar surfaces and nanoparticles of controlled size and shape. A novel concept based on peptide folding has been used for controlled assembly of gold nanoparticles. The group is also involved in the development of Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) for patterning of surfaces on the 30-100 nm length scale. This work is performed jointly with a previous student of the group who nowadays is setting up a nanolaboratory at the Institute of Physics, Vilnius. We are also involved in several EC projects where different types of micro- and nanoscale patterning tools are employed for production of coatings for biofouling, sensing and biomedical applications.

Optical Biosensors, micro- and nanoarrays

The group has a long experience in developing optical transducers for biosensing application. We were the first to demonstrate the use of surface plasmon resonance for studies of bioaffinity interactions at surfaces, a technology that today form the backbone in SPR/Biacore instruments developed for biospecific interaction analysis (BIA). We are today using it in combination with ellipsometric interrogation and imaging optics for microarraying, and in combination with nanoparticle for studies optical enhancement phenomena. This includes, for example, microarray chips for protein multiplexing. The group is also working on the development of generic biochips for studies of ligand-receptor binding. Besides working on microarray fabrication for protein detection and analysis we are also developing biochips for the safety and security area.