Seminars

24/09/2010

To Be Announced

Jesus Jiménez Barbero

19/07/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Sugar & proteins: Applications of Bioconjugates

Prof. Benjamin G. Davis (University of Oxford)

Sugars and Post-Translational Modifications are critical biological markers that modulate the properties of proteins. Our work studies the interplay of proteins, sugars and modifications and their utility...

16/07/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Development of New Strategies for the Synthesis of Radiotracers Labeled with Short-Lived Isotopes: Application to ¹¹C and ¹³N

Dr. Vanessa Gómez Vallejo

Positron emission tomography (PET) is one of the most sensitive and specific technique for imaging molecular pathways in vivo and in a non-invasive way. The development of new synthetic strategies for the fast and reproducible preparation of positron emitter labeled species and the design and synthesis of new labeled compounds with putative in vivo applications is a key step in the trans-disciplinary scenario of nuclear imaging...

08/07/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Optical properties of gold nanostructures: application to the Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering and to the development of a nanobiosensor

Prof. M. Lamy de la Chapelle (Université Paris 13, France)

We have studied the Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) of shape controlled metallic nanocylinders and nanowires which can act as nano-antenna, designed through electron beam lithography and lift off techniques. We have notably studied the influence of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) on the efficiency of SERS...

25/06/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Membrane domains: What you can see and what you can conjecture

Prof. Alicia Alonso, (CSIC-UPV/EHU)

The talk will deal with the current concept of membrane domains (and related microdomains, membrane rafts, etc.) in the light of the on-going research in our laboratory. Membrane domains will be discussed in the framework of three main research projects: (i) imaging phospholipase C hydrolysis of giant unilamellar vesicles containing coexisting liquid-ordered, liquid-disordered, and gel domains, (ii) domains constituted by sphingomyelin, ceramide and cholesterol, and (iii) generation of rigid domains as a procedure to hinder infection by HIV-1.

15/06/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Drugs, Bugs and Demons: the formation, manipulation and application of supported planar membranes

Prof. Stephen Evans (University of Leeds, UK)

Solid supported bilayers have received significant interest in recent years as platforms for the study of membrane and membrane related processes. In Leeds we have developed a range of molecular tethers to; i) attach such membranes to surfaces, ii) via the inclusion of photo-cleavable units permit the facile formation of membrane arrays and finally, iii) to introduce moieties suitable for the self-assembly of membrane multilayers.

11/06/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Glycosylation reactions from biocatalysis to medical applications

Prof. Sabine L Flitsch (The University of Manchester, UK)

Glycosyltransferases are responsible for the biosynthesis of a wide range of glycoconjugates, ranging from polysaccharides and glycoproteins to glycolipids and glycosylated metabolites

09/06/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Open Group Seminar: Microarrays as tools for glycoligand discovery

Dr. María Asunción Campanero-Rhodes (Instituto de Química-Física Rocasolano)

Application of the microarray technology to the glycobiology field is impelling the study of protein-carbohydrate interactions, enabling the high-throughput analysis of biologically relevant systems. Several microarray platforms involving different carbohydrate immobilisation strategies are being developed by the glycoscientists. ...

31/05/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Nanoplasmonic Sensing of Cell-Membrane Mimics: Towards Drug Screening Applications

Prof. Fredrik Höök (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

During the past decade, conventional surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has emerged as a central tool in the drug screening process. Recently, the through-put capacity of these systems has increased by integrating array-based SPR systems with imaging readout and advanced microfluidic liquid handling. However, what still remains a holy grail in this line of industrial R&D is the limited success of SPR to probe the interaction of low-molecular-weight drug candidates with lipid-membrane-residing proteins. While water-soluble proteins can be immobilized at sufficiently high densities to probe the binding of low-molecular-weight drug candidates, the fact that lipids must surround membrane proteins puts constrains on the surface densities that can be reached while still keeping the proteins in a native state...

20/05/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Combining physics, chemistry, biology and physiology to understand structure-function relationships in the pulmonary surfactant system.

Prof. Jesus Perez-Gil (Universidad Complutense Madrid)

The air-liquid interface of alveoli in the mammalian lung is stabilized against physical forces tending to collapse by a lipid-protein complex called pulmonary surfactant. Surfactant complexes are synthetized by specialized cells of the alveolar epithelium in the form of bilayers, which upon secretion to the extracellular spaces adsorb to the interface and form surface active films able to reduce surface tension to almost 0 mN/m during respiratory compression-expansion dynamics...

14/05/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

The Cpl-7endolysin, an outlier in the family of pneumococcal murolytic enzymes

Dr. Margarita Menéndez (Instituto de Química - Física Rocasolano, CSIC)

Streptococcus pneumoniae is responsible of life-threatening diseases worldwide. The high mortality rates bound to the prevalence of drug-resistant pneumococci and to the limited therapeutic options make identification of new strategies for prevention and treatment of pneumococcal infections a paramount...

23/04/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Experience on MR Imaging Research at the Medical Imaging Laboratory of the Hospital Gregorio Marañón, Madrid

Dr. Manuel Desco

This talk describes the research lines related to MR imaging at the Medical Imaging Laboratory of the Hospital Gregorio Marañón, and presents some results derived from that work.

14/04/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Bio-inspired Nanotechnology

Dr. Juan C. Mareque-Rivas (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)

In most biological processes several molecules (small and large, organic and inorganic) work together to achieve a desired function. This is achieved by programming these molecules to recognise each other, co-operate and organise and reorganise themselves in response to the environment and task. It would be a breakthrough if chemistry could mimic these features. It would greatly expand what chemistry can do in many areas...

23/03/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Probing mechanics of biomimetic lipid membranes at nanoscale

Dr. Vadim Frolov (CSIC-UPV/EHU, IKERBASQUE)

Cellular membranes are dynamic systems constantly changing their shape and topology. Unlike many biological processes which can be ultimately understood via analyzing the activity of single molecules, the membrane remodeling is essentially collective phenomenon, involving cooperative interactions between specialized proteins and a small domain of the lipid bilayer.

12/03/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Open Group Seminar: "On the Way to Functional Coating: Polyelectrolyte Multilayers"

Eduardo Guzman (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Ralf's Group  

11/03/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Open Group Seminar: "Molecular mechanism of listriolysin binding to the lipid membranes"

Andrej Bavdek (Ljubljana University, Slovenia)

Ralf's Group    

05/03/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Resorbable polylactides for tissue engineering applications: crystallinity, phase structure and interaction with cells

Prof. Jose-Ramon Sarasua (University of the Basque Country)

Polylactides are prominent materials for tissue engineering applications. One approach for tissue engineering involves harvesting of autologous cells from the patient. Cells are at first cultured on a scaffold in vitro and then implanted with the scaffold in the defect of the patient where the tissue should regenerate at the rate at which the scaffold reabsorbs. In this field, due to anchorage dependence of most cells in tissues and organs in vivo, it is essential to combine adequate scaffolds and proliferating cells. These scaffolds should primarily possess not only an adequate surface chemistry, but also a phase structure and surface topology that allow cell attachment, proliferation and growth...

25/02/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Novel model systems for the investigation of polyvalent protein-hyaluronan interactions on the cell surface

Patricia Wolny

The gel-like hyaluronan (HA) rich coat that surrounds many cells has been linked to a variety of vital cellular functions, but the regulatory mechanisms at the cell-HA matrix interface remain poorly understood. For the thorough investigation of specific interactions between the cell surface and HA as well as the structural properties of this supra-molecular matrix, it is desirable to switch from the complex cellular environment to simplified systems. This work aims to find routes towards the development of new in-vitro model systems of HA-rich coats...

29/01/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Research, Development and Technology (R&D&T) Roadmaps 2020 for Nanomaterials

Prof.dr.ir. Marcel H. Van de Voorde (University of Technology Delft, The Netherlands)

An overview will be given of the present status of nanomaterials R&D&T in the world and it will be demonstrated that a strategy for Europe must be developed to ensure future impact on the economy and the society, and success in this grand challenging new world...

22/01/2010

12.00 pm, Seminar Room on the 1st Floor

Forging a link between Genome, Proteome, Metabolome and Biochemistry

Dr. Manuel Ferrer (CSIC - Institute of Catalysis, Madrid)

Cell differentiation and maintenance are intrinsically complex processes requiring the coordinated dynamic expression of hundreds of genes and proteins in precise response to external transcriptional and metabolic signalling cues (modulated by external stimuli). Numerous recent reports have used both experimental and computational techniques to dissect this complexity. However, albeit microbial communities (both environmental and human-associated) are a focus of intense research interest, much of this is centred on genetic triggers/controls of the cellular processes...