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Applied Mathematics Colloquium

Friday, November 18,  2005, 11:30 am
Cullimore Lecture Hall II
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Condensation of globular proteins from solution

J. D. Gunton

Physics Department

Lehigh University

Bethlehem, PA

Abstract

The function of proteins is determined by their structure. Protein structure is obtained from X-ray diffraction of high quality crystals, but it is quite difficult to grow such crystals. The crucial bottleneck in the growth of high quality crystals from solution is the crystal nucleation process. As a consequence scientists have been trying to determine the dependence of the phase diagram and crystal nucleation rate on the initial conditions of the solution, which typically consists of proteins, water, salt and buffer. A major difficulty is an inadequate knowledge of the protein-protein interactions, but progress has been made using simplified models.

It is also the case that several human diseases are caused by undesirable protein condensation. In such cases, the goal is to understand the underlying kinetics of these phenomena, in order to slow down or prevent nucleation. The talk will provide an overview of the field.