MRS Fall 2009: Tuesday morning, part 1
UU1.1 "Crystallization of complex molecules on SAMs: Toward the general mechanism of oriented nucleation on organic monolayers" Joanna Aizenberg (Harvard)
Now, this could be very interesting for me and my group. I joined session UU (still in the double letter world) this morning was because I was curious whether their results could apply to my crystallisation work and protein-on-surface work.
She and her group want to come up with new "bottom-up" crystallisation stategies using biominerals as guide viz calcite (CaCO3). Sea urchin, mollusc, coccoliths, etc. These organisims need to control crystal orientation in order to make best use of their properties, such as minimising optical birefringence. The key: stereochemical recognition at the organic/inorganic interface. The priming regions are typically acidic, sulfonated, phosphorylated, and/or rich in Asp, Glu, Ser, Thr. So their idea is to create SAMs with these functionalities to control nucleation plane.
The hypothesis put forward is that it's not epitaxy but instead stereochemical recognition, where the terminal lattice planes are aligned not by lattice matching, but by chemical matching of the translational symmetry of the underlayer (e.g. the terminal carboxylate on a SAM aligns to the orientation of carbonates in calcite crystals).
OK, some not exactly a complete match with what I expected, but I like this sort of fundamental work exploring questions that I'm interested in too. The big question asked had to do with the role of the SAM in directing nucleation, seeding, growth, etc.
Just a review of some talks I saw this morning...
UU1.2 "Molecular biomimetics: genetically controlled synthesis, assembly and formation of functional materials using solid binding peptides" Mehmet Sarikaya (U. Wash, Istanbul Tech Univ)
The goal: self assembly of molecular structures at the nanoscale for nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, nano-etc. One thing I hadn't realised was that tempered martensite with retained austenite has almost the same microstructure as layered aragonite ("mother of pearl"). That's one for the students next term in Microstructures tutorials.
They've used phage display to work out peptide sequences to bind a wide range of surfaces. Some of these were found to have a catalytic effect on formation of nanoparticles and form peptide self assembled monolayers. Nice. It would have been nice to see a longer talk.
Aside: man, the sessions are packed again! I hope this doesn't mean a move from Boston because they can no longer accommodate the conferences.
UU1.3 "Constrained synthesis and organisation of catalytically active metal nanoparticles by using a highly stable protein as a template" Silke Behreus (Karlsruhe, Hebrew Univ)
This talk alerted me to a protein I hadn't heard of before, "Stable Protein 1" (SP1). It's a stress-related homo-dodecamer with a 2-3 nm pore in the centre that's stable to 100 °C. They did some GM work on the protein to put a (His)6 polypeptide on the inside of the pore to create a series of metal-binding sites. The speaker also showed some cool TEMs with larger chain-like structures formed organised dodecamers.
Now, this could be very interesting for me and my group. I joined session UU (still in the double letter world) this morning was because I was curious whether their results could apply to my crystallisation work and protein-on-surface work.
She and her group want to come up with new "bottom-up" crystallisation stategies using biominerals as guide viz calcite (CaCO3). Sea urchin, mollusc, coccoliths, etc. These organisims need to control crystal orientation in order to make best use of their properties, such as minimising optical birefringence. The key: stereochemical recognition at the organic/inorganic interface. The priming regions are typically acidic, sulfonated, phosphorylated, and/or rich in Asp, Glu, Ser, Thr. So their idea is to create SAMs with these functionalities to control nucleation plane.
The hypothesis put forward is that it's not epitaxy but instead stereochemical recognition, where the terminal lattice planes are aligned not by lattice matching, but by chemical matching of the translational symmetry of the underlayer (e.g. the terminal carboxylate on a SAM aligns to the orientation of carbonates in calcite crystals).
OK, some not exactly a complete match with what I expected, but I like this sort of fundamental work exploring questions that I'm interested in too. The big question asked had to do with the role of the SAM in directing nucleation, seeding, growth, etc.
Just a review of some talks I saw this morning...
UU1.2 "Molecular biomimetics: genetically controlled synthesis, assembly and formation of functional materials using solid binding peptides" Mehmet Sarikaya (U. Wash, Istanbul Tech Univ)
The goal: self assembly of molecular structures at the nanoscale for nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, nano-etc. One thing I hadn't realised was that tempered martensite with retained austenite has almost the same microstructure as layered aragonite ("mother of pearl"). That's one for the students next term in Microstructures tutorials.
They've used phage display to work out peptide sequences to bind a wide range of surfaces. Some of these were found to have a catalytic effect on formation of nanoparticles and form peptide self assembled monolayers. Nice. It would have been nice to see a longer talk.
Aside: man, the sessions are packed again! I hope this doesn't mean a move from Boston because they can no longer accommodate the conferences.
UU1.3 "Constrained synthesis and organisation of catalytically active metal nanoparticles by using a highly stable protein as a template" Silke Behreus (Karlsruhe, Hebrew Univ)
This talk alerted me to a protein I hadn't heard of before, "Stable Protein 1" (SP1). It's a stress-related homo-dodecamer with a 2-3 nm pore in the centre that's stable to 100 °C. They did some GM work on the protein to put a (His)6 polypeptide on the inside of the pore to create a series of metal-binding sites. The speaker also showed some cool TEMs with larger chain-like structures formed organised dodecamers.
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