Time: 14:00 May 15, 2015
Location: No. 2 Meeting Room (Room 204), Conference Center of Energy Building
Reporter: Pro. Kenneth J. Shea, Department of Chemistry and hemical Engineering and Materials Science University of California, Irvine, USA
Biography:
Professor Kenneth Shea received his BS and MS degree from University of Toledo, and his Ph D from The Pennsylvania State University. Following Post Doctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology he assumed a faculty position at the University of California, Irvine where he is currently Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering & Material cience. He was chairman of the Chemistry Department from 2002-2005.
Professor Shea’s research interests are in synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, polymer and materials chemistry. He has supervised over 120 graduate and postdoctoral students at the University of California. Professor Shea and his students have published over 300 manuscripts. He has been awarded several US Patents and has been a consultant to over ten companies.
Abstract:
Just as medicinal chemists routinely design and synthesize small molecules to target the active site of a single protein in the proteome, we suggest that advances in polymer synthesis, structural biology and nanotechnology have progressed to the point where we can design synthetic polymer nanoparticles (NPs) with antibody-like affinity and selectivity for targeted biomacromolecules.
The talk will describe abiotic protein/peptide and carbohydrate affinity agents (“plastic antibodies”). These agents, synthetic polymer NP hydrogels, are formulated with functional groups omplementary to the biomacromolecule target. Unique to these materials is that their affinity can be “turned off” simply by lowering the solution temperature, a strategy exploited in “catch and elease” of target proteins The talk will be concerned with exploring the applications of these aterials for protein detection, separation and as potential therapeutic agents to replace antibody drugs.
Contact: Prof. Lihua Zhang (Group 1810, 84379720)