2009/11/27
SONIA CONTERA 'High Resolution Dynamics and Mechanics of Biological Systems with AFM: From Single Molecules to Living Cells and Nanomedicine'
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SONIA CONTERA
Department of Physics, Oxford University
Nanoscience for Medicine
Oxford James Martin 21st century School
UNITED KINGDOM
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| Sonia Contera |
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Recent research has shown that cells feel forces and dynamically adapt to them, modifying their behaviour and remodelling their environment, actively generating their own mechanical response and impacting information processing and cellular decision making (mechanotransduction). It appears that not only biochemical signals and networks are essential, but that mechanical forces may well be one of the key factors in addressing one of the most important challenges of post-genomic biomedical research: to understand how individual molecules assemble and function within living cells, tissues and organs.
We use AFM, high-speed AFM and force spectroscopy to investigate with sub-nm resolution, pN accuracy and 10-ms time resolution the details of the mechanical design of single molecules such as membrane proteins and DNA, linking sequence with molecular forces (non-continuum complex electrostatics, hydration, ion size), mechanical properties and functional dynamics. Then we want to continue to the next level of complexity and produce a comprehensive physical description of the cell membrane where individual membrane protein activity is linked to global membrane functions through clustering and cooperativity. In this “mechanical picture” of the cell, physical signals sensed at the cell surface could be transmitted through the pre-stressed cytoskeleton to reach the nucleus and alter gene activity, and the DNA physical properties that we study (in collaboration with Dr S Trigueros) become a key factor in mechanotransduction.
Finally I will discuss the role of the cell mechanical properties (such as adhesion and stiffness) in disease diagnosis and treatment, in particular how they affect cells interaction with nanostructures, addressing an important issue in nano drug-delivery systems by using new dynamic “higher eigenmodes” AFM techniques.
Seminar, November 27, 2009, 15:00. Seminar Room
Hosted by Prof. Niek van Hulst |
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