QUANTITATIVE LIFE SCIENCES SEMINAR - Thursday 26 November

[Quantitative Life Sciences]

QUANTITATIVE LIFE SCIENCES SEMINAR

Thursday, 26 November - 11:00 am
Central Area, 2nd Floor- ICTP, old SISSA Building

Speaker: Ali Hassanali, ICTP

Title: "Hydrogen bonding interactions in hydrophobic environments: from 
amyloid proteins to charged water cluster"


Abstract:

"In this talk I will briefly discuss recent work looking at the 
importance of hydrogen bonding interactions in hydrophobic environments 
such as proteins and air-water interfaces: Amyloid fibrils are 
peptide/protein aggregates that have been implicated in 
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. We have recently gotten 
interested in the anomalous optical properties of the amyloids since 
they are able to fluoresce even in the absence of aromatic 
residues/systems consisting of pi-conjugation. Using first principles 
simulations, we find that this property is related to proton transfer 
that occurs long hydrogen bonds in the fibril. Understanding the 
molecular origins of the IR spectra is extremely challenging and 
requires detailed atomistic molecular models that account for both the 
quantum mechanical nature of the electrons and nuclei. I will briefly 
discuss work on examining the IR spectra of charged water clusters 
consisting of either a proton or a hydroxide ion and how this can change 
depending on their proximity to the air-water interface."

Web page: http://indico.ictp.it/event/7749/

-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
e-mail: qls at ictp.it