February Monthly Meeting Wednesday, February 23, 1999 Procter & Gamble Health Care Research Center Sponsored by Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals Featuring Brian Halsall Cincinnati Chemist of the Year

Index

Program
 

5:30 - 6:15 pm	Biochemistry Discussion Group, HCRC Auditorium Dr. John E. Maggio, University of Cincinnati Pathological peptide misfolding - In vitro growth of Alzheimer's disease amyloid plaques Colloid Discussion Group, Harvard Room Robert Corkery, PhD, Corporate Research Division, Procter & Gamble From whale food to new porous materials using biomimetic strategies
6:00 - 7:00 pm	Reception: assorted soft drinks, beer and wine. Chips & pretzels with dip, Assorted cheese tray
7:00 pm	Buffet Dinner - Cost $24 - Grilled marinated chicken breast, Romaine Greek salad with feta cheese, cucumbers, tomotaoes and black olives, Tortellini in Maranara Sauce, Brocolli with cheese sauce; Fresh baked dinner rolls & butter; Dessert: Assorted miniature pies, petit fors, miniature eclairs, chocolate covered strawberries, plus a platter of fresh sliced melons, pineapple,strawberries,and grapes with dip.
8:15 pm	Presentation of awards to the Cincinnati Chemist of the Year, and Research Associate of the Year  Talk by Cincinnati Chemist of the Year, Brian Halsall, University of Cincinnati Punctuated Equilibrium in Research - From Concept to Device

Reservations: Call the section answering line at (513) 622-3353 or e-mail cintacs.im@pg.com Include your name (complete with correct spelling), phone number and affiliation. Please specify if this is your first Cincinnati ACS meeting when making your reservation. All reservations must be received by noon, Monday, Feb. 21, 2000. If you have any difficulties, please call Vicki Libbin at (513) 622-2495. As a reminder, if you decide you must miss a meeting after you have made reservations, please call to cancel. If you do not cancel, the Section will have to charge you because it will have been charged by the hotel. Payment will be received at the door. Guests are always welcome; emeritus, unemployed, new, and student members are half price.

Directions: Follow 71 N to the Fields-Ertel exit. This is the first exit past 275. Make a left at the light onto Mason-Montgomery Rd. Stay on Mason-Montgomery Rd for approx. 2 miles. Natorps is on the left, there is a Biggs and a Lowes on the right. You will be able to see the HCRC (Health Care Research Center) after Mason-Montgomery Rd crosses Irwin-Simpson Rd. Stay on Mason-Montgomery and turn right at the first P&G sign. Follow the road straight to the main entrance where the flag poles are. Park outside the main entrance in the visitor’s lot.

Abstract: The last 20 years has witnessed a revolution in our ability to manipulate and measure molecules, with 'nano' becoming a buzz-prefix. Some small things come from large beginnings, however, where the development is vertical rather than lateral. This has been the case for immunoassay with electrochemical detection, a technique that has evolved from a single assay done at a dropping mercury electrode, to simultaneous multianalysis on a chip, and complex immunosensing microdevices. The presentation will outline that evolution, focus on the personalities involved, and define important punctuation points that resulted in significant advances.

About the Speaker: Born in Harrow, England, H. Brian Halsall received a PhD in physical biochemistry from the University of Birmingham in 1967. He left the grime of the industrial English Midlands immediately to enjoy sun, sand, surf, and culture shock during a post-doc at UCLA, followed by four years in the MAN program at Oak Ridge National Labs. It was during these two residencies that he took a preparative device, the zonal centrifuge, and developed it as an analytical tool for determining the sedimentation and diffusion coefficients of macromolecules. He also developed a practical solution for the problem of droplet sedimentation in density gradient separations. Moving to Cincinnati and a happy reunion with academia in 1974, he returned to the enigmatic alpha-one acid glycoprotein. Among many other studies, his group was the first to determine the glycan structures at each of the five glycosylation sites in AAG in normals and the diseased state, finding evidence of disease specificity and prognostic value in the changes at individual sites. In 1977, a collaboration with Bill Heineman turned to exploring electrochemistry as a detection method for immunoassay, and the subsequent developments are widely regarded as the definitive and pioneering work in this area. Professor Halsall has published 135 papers to date.

About the Discussion Group Leader: John E. Maggio studied organic chemistry and biochemistry as a graduate student (Ph.D. Harvard University 1981) and peptide neuropharmacology as a postdoc (University of Cambridge, UK, Yale University). He served on the faculty of the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School from 1984 to 1997. He is presently van Maanen Professor of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Director of the Department of Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. His research interests include protein chemistry and spectroscopy, bioactive peptides and their receptors, drug discovery, and protein-protein interactions.

Abstract: About two dozen human diseases are caused by the misfolding of normally innocuous soluble proteins into an aberrant conformation which forms insoluble amyloid aggregates that grow large enough to disrupt cell and tissue function. The amyloid plaques that are the hallmark pathological feature of Alzheimer's disease can be grown in vitro, enabling detailed study of kinetics, conformation, and conformational changes in the 40-mer peptide A-beta which makes up the amyloid. While the growth of the plaques is extremely favorable thermodynamically, it is kinetically vulnerable to therapeutic intervention.

About the Discussion Group Leader: Robert Corkery received his Bachelor of Science degree in Geophysics from the Australian National University as well as his PhD, for research entitled "Artificial Biomineralization" from the Department of Materials and Physical Sciences. Dr. Corkery carried out postdoctoral research at the Australian National University, as well as at the University of Lund in Sweden. He currently carries out research on biomimetic materials in the Corporate Research Division of Procter & Gamble.

Abstract: Self-assembly of amphiphilic biomolecules coordinates the complex architectures and functions of living things, from mesostructured cell membranes to macroscopic bones and teeth. The 1992 announcement by Mobil of MCM-41 heralded the paradigm shift to artificial biomineral synthesis using self-assemblies of small surfactant molecules as templates. MCM-41, a so-called "wide-pore zeolite" is x-ray amorphous at atomic scale yet is highly x-ray crystalline at molecular scale. MCM-41 has regularly spaced hexagonal rod pores of 4-10nm diameter. This type of scaled hierarchy in ordering was known in biosystems such as the shells of marine plankton, but not in man-made systems.

By the mid-90's other inorganic oxides and phosphates, etc, were grown and rearranged into a plenitude of structures and biomimetic forms using similar, relatively small template systems to those used for MCM-41. An exciting and recent step to macromolecular directing agents has subsequently extended the size-range, diversity and utility of man-made biomineral analogs and has demonstrated the robustness of the self-assembled template concept.

As an exciting example of this shift to larger length-scale inorganic forms, new multilamellar vesicle and polyhedral cellular foams morphologies will be presented. The vesicles are multilayers of flattened curved discs resembling onions. When swollen with oil, the onions can yield exceptionally porous glass microfoams (up to 90% porous). Polyhedral foam cell sizes can be tuned by temperature or composition from around 20nm up to 100nm, and connections between cells ensure excellent permeability to liquids and gases. These materials are thermally resistant to over 850 deg C.

In the future, biomimetic materials such as these will no doubt benefit hi-tech applications in areas such as non-linear optics, gas storage, drug delivery, catalysis, quantum dot encapsulation, reaction confinement and molecular sieving.

Speaker:	Dr. Andy Sommer Department of Chemistry  Molecular Microscopy Laboratory  Miami University Dr. Sommer’s research focus for the past nineteen years has been in the area of molecular microscopy. Specific interests have been directed toward fundamental studies involving materials characterization, instrument development, and methods development. Dr. Sommer has worked with chemical and paper companies on real world problems utilizing molecular microscopy. He will talk about these applications as well as the science behind molecular microscopy. Dr. Sommer received a B.S. in Chemistry from Delaware Valley College. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from Lehigh University. After a post doctoral fellowship at IBM, he joined Miami University where he is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry.
Location:	Quality Central Hotel 4747 Montgomery Road, Norwood, Ohio
Directions:	From I-71 both directions: Take exit 7 Norwood Lateral west (S. R. 562). Take the Montgomery Rd. exit. At the end of the exit ramp, left on Norwood Ave. Left on Montgomery Rd. The hotel is on the right. From I-75 both directions: Take exit 7 Norwood Lateral east (S. R. 562). Take the Montgomery Rd. exit. At the end of the exit ramp, left on Wesley Ave. Left on Norwood Ave. Left on Montgomery Rd. The hotel is on the right.
Schedule:5:30 p.m. 6:30 p.m 7:30 p.m.	Social Hour (Cash Bar) Dinner Program
Menu:	Roast Sirloin of Beef $15.00  Chicken Piccata $15.00 Vegetarian $14.00 All dinners include a Caesar salad, potatoes or rice, rolls and butter, choice of coffee, tea, or milk, and pecan pie dessert. Prices include gratuity. Guests are welcome.
Reservations:	Contact Charles Tereck by e-mail at tereck@katzen.com by Monday, February 14, 2000. Please indicate your meal selection. Guests are welcome. Cancellations made after February 15, 2000 will be subject to a charge.

Formatted and uploaded 07 February 00 by cinacs@www.che.uc.edu