Description
(18h00-19h30) Poster Session & Finals
(19h30-20h00) Mingle session
The migration patterns of fish have been shown to be reflected in the elemental composition of certain bone-like structures (otoliths) within the fish. These follow a radial growth pattern with characteristic ring structures forming annually, giving a method for aging the fish. Elemental analysis of the salts present in the otolith can then be used with locational data to give a mapping of the...
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a rapid elemental analysis technique that has been used for the detection and identification of bacterial pathogens. There is a high demand for real-time identification of bacteria and the capabilities of LIBS for this are promising. Optimizing the bacterial mounting techniques prior to LIBS analysis in a clinical setting is currently underway....
Nonlinear optical microscopy is a novel technique used for imaging biological structures in tissues. The technique uses nonlinear optical processes such as second and third harmonic generation (SHG and THG, respectively), for producing image contrast. Imaging of biological tissues with SHG and THG signals has several advantages over traditional microscopy methods that rely on single-photon...
Most small single-domain proteins spontaneously organize into essentially unique three-dimensional structures determined by their amino acid sequence. While much has been learned about this folding process from experiment and theory, open questions remain. Here we use an intermediate-level coarse-grained model with 7 atoms per amino acid to explore the interplay of two factors in the folding...
We have previously demonstrated that the mechanical properties of collagen fibrils extracted from tendons are non- uniform along their length at the micrometre scale. We want to investigate how this non- uniformity affects fibril deformation as they are stretched or compressed. We build a platform compatible with an atomic force microscope (AFM) to strain a thin elastic sheet onto which...
The response of an organic photodiode to fields of 300 kVp photon beams was measured while varying the bias applied to the diode. A heterojunction photodiode was fabricated by spin coating a blend of P3HT and PCBM on a glass substrate. The bottom contact was ITO and the top contact aluminum. The photodiode was irradiated with an Xstrahl 300 orthovoltage x-ray unit (Xstrahl Ltd., Surrey, UK)....
Nonspecific interactions of macromolecules in the cell interior lead to a phenomenon known as macromolecular crowding. Interactions between a molecule of interest and the many molecules in the cell interior can modify its characteristics. For example, crowding can cause changes in biomolecules including protein structure, enzyme kinetics and protein-protein interactions. The effect of crowding...
The dynamics of polymer chains in confined environment are relevant in understanding diffusion of macro-molecules in real systems such as biological cells. Macromolecular diffusion in cytoplasm exhibits a sharp reduction in diffusivity with increasing molecular weight; a sieving mechanism has been suggested for the same. We present pulsed field gradient NMR experimental studies of the...
Many biologically motivated problems naturally call for the investigation and comparison of molecular variants, such as determining the mechanisms of specificity in biomolecular interactions or the mechanisms of molecular evolution. We consider a generalized ensemble algorithm for coarse-grained simulations of biomolecules which allows the thermodynamic behavior of two or more sequences to be...
