Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for April
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Peptide Materials Engineering
Thu, Apr 03, 2008 @ 03:30 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Announcing The USC Inaugural Pings LectureshipwithProfessor Matthew TirrellDepartments of Chemical Engineering and Materials
Materials Research Laboratory
Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies
California NanoSystems Institute
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5130
Tel:(805) 893-3141, Fax:(805) 893-8124
E-mail: tirrell@engineering.ucsb.eduAbstractPeptides are functional modules of protein macromolecules that can be
displayed apart from the whole protein to create biofunctional surfaces
and interfaces, or can be re-assembled in new ways to create synthetic mimics of protein structures. Each of these routes are being employed to gain new insight into protein folding and to develop new, functional, biomolecular materials. Examples of work from our laboratory in this area using peptide-lipid conjugate molecules (peptide amphiphiles) will be discussed relating to multi-functional surfaces, liposomal drug delivery, protein analogous micelles, DNA-binding peptide modules and anti-microbial peptides.Professor Matthew Tirrell is Dean of Engineering at UC, Santa Barbara. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in 1977 in Polymer Science from the University of Massachusetts. From 1977 to 1999 he was on the faculty of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, where he served as head of department from 1995 to 1999. His research has been in polymer surface properties, adsorption, adhesion, surface treatment, friction, lubrication and biocompatibility. He has co-authored about 270 papers and one book and has supervised about 70 Ph.D. students. Professor Tirrell has been a Sloan and a Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and has received the Allan P. Colburn, Charles Stine, William H. Walker and the Professional Progress Awards from AIChE, and was the Institute Lecturer in 2001. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of: the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, the AAAS, and the APS. In 2003, he concluded two years of service as co-chair of the steering committee for the National Research Council: "Beyond the Molecular Frontier: Challenges for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering".
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Development of a biomimetic lung surfactant
Thu, Apr 10, 2008 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lyman Handy Colloquium SeriesPresentsAnnelise E. BarronAssociate Professor, Dept. of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305AbstractWe are developing a new family of amphipathic peptide mimics for a synthetic lung surfactant (LS) replacement. Presently used exogenous LS replacements are extracted from animal lungs and used to treat respiratory distress sydrome in premature infants. The hydrophobic lung surfactant proteins SP-B and SP-C are necessary constituents of an effective surfactant replacement for the treatment of respiratory distress. As there are concerns and limitations associated with animal-derived surfactants, much recent work has focused on synthetic peptide analogues of SP-B and SP-C. However, creating an accurate peptide mimic of SP-C that retains good biophysical surface activity is challenging, given this lipopeptide's extreme hydrophobicity and propensity to misfold and aggregate. One approach that overcomes these difficulties is the use of helical poly-/N/-substituted glycines, or "peptoids," to mimic SP-C. We discuss advances in the design and characterization of peptoid-based SP-C mimics, which recently have led to the creation of our most biomimetic surfactant replacements to date.
Peptoid sequences were systemically varied in order to study surface activity effects of varying peptoid helicity,/ N/-terminal side chain chemistry and sequence length, as well as the side chain structures used within the hydrophobic C-terminal helix. The secondary structures of the peptoid SP-C mimics are analyzed in organic solution by CD spectroscopy. Langmuir-Wilhelmy surface balance experiments, epifluorescence videomicroscopy studies, and pulsating bubble surfactometry are used to characterize the surface activity and surface film morphology of the mimics in combination with a biomimetic phospholipid formulation. These results provide us with the first comprehensive structure-function relationships for peptoid-based analogues of surfactant protein C, as well as strong evidence that they offer significant promise for use in a synthetic replacement for animal-derived surfactants. There are several other potential applications for a safe and non-immunogenic surfactant formulation with these properties, other than treating respiratory distress, including protection against ventilator-induced lung injury, drug delivery to the lungs, and treatment of ear infections.Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Physics at the Nanoscale: Tubes, Sheets, Ribbons, and Junctions
Thu, Apr 17, 2008 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Distinguished Lecture SeriesPresentsProfessor Steven G. LouieDepartment of Physics
Materials Sciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CaAbstract The restricted geometry of nanostructures often gives rise to novel, unexpected properties and phenomena. In particular, symmetry and many-electron effects can become significantly more important in determining the behaviors of these systems. In this talk, I discuss some recent progress on using theory and computation to understand and predict some of their electronic, transport, optical, and mechanical properties. Examples of systems of interest include carbon and BN nanotubes, graphene, graphene nanoribbons, and molecular junctions. These nanostructures exhibit a number of unexpected behaviors – novel conductance characteristics, extraordinarily large excitonic effects (even in the metallic systems), interesting friction forces, anomalous anisotropy in the dynamics of carriers (the 2D massless Dirac fermions) in graphene under an external periodic potential, and an electric field-induced half-metallic state for the zigzag graphene nanoribbons, among others. The physical mechanisms behind these unusual behaviors are examined.Thursday, April 17, 2008
Seminar at 12:45 p.m.
OHE 122Refreshments served after the seminar in HED Lobby
The Scientific Community is Cordially Invited.Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
