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SUMMARY:IMX Seminar Series - Amyloid Fibrils: Once Pathological Agents\, T
 oday Building Blocks for the Future
DTSTART:20191125T131500
DTEND:20191125T141500
DTSTAMP:20261005T021955Z
UID:9eda6c5f2fe432212e0ee02deeca0df06df2bd1702b8bacb4a23554a
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Raffaele Mezzenga\,ETH Zurich Switzerland\nProtein fibri
 ls are protein aggregates\, which can be generated from food-grade protein
 s by unfolding and hydrolysis. The resulting protein fibrils can be used i
 n a broad context of applications. At length scales above the well-establi
 shed atomistic fingerprint of amyloid fibrils\, these colloidal aggregates
  exhibit mesoscopic properties comparable to those of natural polyelectrol
 ytes\, yet with persistence lengths several orders of magnitude beyond the
  Debye length. This intrinsic rigidity\, together with their chiral\, pola
 r and charged nature\, provides these systems with some unique physical be
 havior. In this talk I will discuss our current understanding on the mesos
 copic properties of amyloid fibrils at the single molecule level\, the imp
 lication of their semiflexible nature on their liquid crystalline properti
 es\, and I will illustrate how this information prove useful in understand
 ing their collective behavior in bulk and when adsorbed at liquid interfac
 es. By the careful exploitation of the physical properties of amyloid fibr
 ils\, the design of advanced materials with unprecedented physical propert
 ies become possible\, and I will give a few examples on how these systems 
 can ideally suit the design not only of complex food systems\, but also of
  biosensors and biomaterials\, catalytic and water purification membranes.
 \n\nBio: Raffaele Mezzenga received his PhD from EPFL Lausanne in 2001 and
  spent 2001-2002 as a postdoctoral scientist at University of California\,
  Santa Barbara\, working on the self-assembly of polymer colloids. In 2003
  he moved to the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne as research scientist
 \, working on the self-assembly of surfactants\, natural amphiphiles and l
 yotropic liquid crystals. In 2005 he was hired as Associate Professor in t
 he Physics Department of the University of Fribourg\, and he then joined E
 TH Zurich on 2009 as Full Professor. His research focuses on the fundament
 al understanding of self-assembly processes in polymers\, lyotropic liquid
  crystals\, food and biological colloidal systems. Prof. Mezzenga has been
  recipient of several national and international distinctions such as the 
 2011 AOCS Young Scientist Research Award\, the 2013 Dillon Medal and the 2
 017 Fellowship of the American Physical Society\, the Biomacromolecules/Ma
 cromolecules 2013 Young Investigator Award of the American Chemical Societ
 y\, the 2004 Swiss Science National Foundation Professorship Award and the
  2019 Spark Award for the most innovative 2019 ETH invention.\n \n \n 
LOCATION:MXF 1 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MXF%201
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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