Seminar Title: Zooming in on molecular interactions at lipid membranes with neutron diffraction
Time: 12:30 – 1:30
PBB 131 and WebEx
https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/meet/xil11015
Ella Mihailescu - Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, Rockville, MD)
Lipids are biological building blocks that have allowed encapsulation and compartimetalization, which are the basis of living organisms. Due their amphipatic nature, lipids self assemble into various structure - most often, a lipid bilayer – which creates the substrate for biological confinement and molecular interactions. Due to their great diversity, natural and synthetic li[pids provide the platform for both basic research (e.g. structure-function of membrane-associated proteins), but also for medical application, such as drug encapsulation for cellular delivery.
The details of the molecular-level structures and interactions of the ~ 5 nanometer thick lipid bilayers and their guest molecules (proteins, peptides, nucleic acid) is not easily accessible, experimentally. In this talk, I will discuss the applications of scattering techniques, with emphasis on neutron diffraction and reflectometry for examining internal structure of lipid membranes. A few examples from membrane-active peptide studies to transfection lipids, will be presented.
For more information, contact: Xiuling Lu at xiuling.lu@uconn.edu