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Chemistry Biophysical Chemistry

Angeliki Damianoglou

Research (CTA-EPSRC) me

My work involves the quality control, the folding and stability of biopharmaceuticals-protein related drugs by circular dichroism.

Our work involves studies of monoclonal antibodies, growth factor proteins,glycoproteins, pegylated proteins...(the refolding process of an antibody isolated from inclusion bodies can be challenging...)

To obtain accurate and consistent measurements from circular dichroism (CD) instruments, it is important that they are properly calibrated, and that this calibration is checked regularly:

Problems with your calibration standard?

A.Damianoglou et al., A new reference material for UV–Visible circular dichroism spectroscopy,Chirality, 20 (9):1029–1038, 2008

 My project is on :

Unusual spectra features in polarised spectra appear in...

....Membrane proteins can be challenging samples to work with (assemble or aggregate???) and as such often require the use of multiple techniques.

We use various spectroscopic and other complement techniques to get an insight into the structure of the antimicrobial peptide melittin in detergent micelles and lipid membranes-vesicles.

We explore the conformational changes of membrane-bound MELITTIN and its interaction with model membrane lipid systems.

melittin.png lipids_shape.jpg

The techniques we use include:

  • Linear dichroism and FT–IR for orientation information
  • Circular dichroism and FT-IR for conformation information.
  • Electron Microscopy and dynamic light scattering for molecular sizing,
  • Fluorescence emission for information on peptide environment,
  • Thin-layer chromatography for lipid identification.
  • Gel electrophoresis and analytical ultracentrifugation to identify oligomerisation state and
  • Calorimetry to investigate the thermodynamics.

We observe how the physical properties of both the peptide and the membranes affect the insertion kinetics of the peptide in lipid vesicles.

in_lipid.png

Publications

  1. J.Rajendra, et al.,Quantitation of protein orientation in flow-oriented unilamellar liposomes by linear dichroism, Chemical Physics, 326 (1):210–220, 2006
  2. A.Damianoglou et al., A new reference material for UV–Visible circular dichroism spectroscopy, Chirality, 20 (9):1029–1038, 2008
  3. M.R Hicks, et al., Folding and membrane Insertion of pore–forming peptide gramicidin occur as a concerted process, JMB, 383, 358–366, 2008
  4. M.R Hicks, et al., Synchrotron radiation linear dichroism spectroscopy of the antibiotic peptide gramicidin in lipid membranes, Analyst, 2009.

Conferences

  • European Biophysics Congress, London, England, 2007 (European Biophysics Journal, Volume 36, Supplement 1 / July, 2007)
  • 11th International conference–Circular Dichroism, Groningen, Holland, 2007 CHIRALITY
  • 1st Portuguese, Spanish and British Biophysics Congress, Lisbon, Portugal, 2008
  • Europian Biophysics Congress, Genova, Italy, 2009 (European Biophysics Journal,Volume 38, Supplement 1 / July, 2009)

Member of the RSC, British Biochemical Society, Midlands Biophysics Network and I am applying to be a member of British Biophysical Society.

EDUCATIONAL and TRANFERABLE SKILLS workshops attended:

  • European Computer Driving Licence Certificate (ECDL-obtained 2009)
  • First Aid (First Aid at Work certificate of St. John Ambulance)
  • Managing and Supervising Teams Training, City college, Coventry
  • Time Management workshop, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • Project management workshop, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • Team Building, Science Communication & Decision making training courses. As part of the Warwick Certificate in Transferable skills (to be obtained...!!!).
  • Postgraduate Tutor’s Workshop-Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • Poster Design workshop, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • Introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • RSC-Industry tour for postgraduates, Glasgow, Scotland, 2008
  • LGC, London-Workshop: Evaluating the performance of chemical methods of analysis.
  • LGC, London-Workshop: Introduction to method validation.
  • NPL, London-Workshop: Measurements for Biotechnology.
  • Circular and Linear Dichroism Workshop, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • Isothermal titration Calorimetry Workshop-Microcal, University of Warwick, Coventry.
  • Dynamic Light scattering workshop-Malvern Instruments
  • Analytical Ultacentrigugation workshop, University of Warwick, Coventry

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