Tethered Vesicle Assembly as Monitored by QCM-D

Lyman Handy Colloquium SeriesPresentsCurtis FrankProfessor, Dept. of Chemical Engineering,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305Abstract: One of the stable forms of assemblies that amphiphilic phospholipids can generate in an aqueous solution is that of the vesicle or liposome, which consists of a spherical "sack" encapsulating a liquid (buffer or water) and having a lipid bilayer as the enclosing membrane. In a highly reductionist view, this structure may be able to mimic the cell membrane to some extent. Our research objective has been to develop assembly protocols such that an array of such vesicles could be used as a substrate for a bioanalytical device. The key to such potential devices is that the vesicles be localized at a solid substrate, and we accomplish this through use of a biotin-streptavidin-biotin tethering scheme. Moreover, this tethering protocol permits use of surface-sensitive tools to monitor the array fabrication. In this presentation, we will describe the use of the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring to follow the lipid assembly process. We will show how the build-up of the tethered vesicle array may be followed quantitatively, and we will give one example of an antibody-antigen recognition experiment based on the tethered vesicle platform.

Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 122

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir