Research Poster Presentations
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A Crystal Garden Approach Toward Mimics for Early Multi-cellular Life Salsabeel Allan, Kamia Punia, Michael Bucaro, William L’Amoreaus, Krishnaswami Raja Faculty Mentor: Professor Krishnaswami Raja Department of Chemistry This project describes a seminal approach towards generating biomimetic versions of multi-cellular life: coral/sponge mimics and protein incorporated tubes that will serve as scaffolds for producing artificial blood vessels (vascular grafts) and in future bone implants. In the construction of sponge/coral mimics we produce silicatephosphate constructs incorporating proteins (that provide flexibility and promote cell adhesion) on which various cell lines (including stem cell lines) can be assembled. Sponges are an example of early multi-cellular life and are primarily composed of calcium carbonate/silica associated with the protein spongin (a modified collagen) and cells (choanocytes; these flagellated cells closely resemble the unicellular marine eukaryotic organism, the choanoflagellate). In this proposal we reverse engineer sponge scaffolds to produce intercalating networks of proteins with carbonate/silicate. The synthesis of these biomaterials and their characterizion via transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and Infrared spectroscopy will be presented.The biocompatibility of these constructs was established by growing mammalian cell lines on the scaffolds and the cell viability was established by advanced microscopy.These results will also be presented.To put it in a nut shell, in this research project we employ protein incorporated variations of crystal garden constructs to produce mimics of early multi-cellular life resembling corals/sponges and also lay the groundwork for creating bioengineered tissues.
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Synthesis of Curcumin Derivatives Vyshnavi Rajendra, Kamia Punia, Andrew Mancuso, Wei Shi, Krishnaswami Raja, Mario Castellanos Faculty Mentor: Professor Krishnaswami Raja Department of Chemistry Curcuma longa is used as a spice in South Asian cooking and in ancient Ayurveda. Curcumin is the bioactive component extracted from the rhizome of Curcuma longa.There has recently been tremendous interest in curcumin, [(1E, 6E)-1, 7-bis (4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl) hepta-1,6-diene 3,5dione] because it has been shown to have antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antiAlzheimer’s disease activity and antibiotic activity. However, its poor solubility in water has restricted its development as an effective therapeutic agent. In this project, I propose to develop a synthetic technology to produce curcumin derivatives with water soluble groups including synthetic polymers and proteins which can potentially enhance the therapeutic efficacy of curcumin. We will synthesize mono-functional derivatives of curcumin in which one of the phenolic groups of curcumin will be chemically modified with reactive groups such as Carboxylic acid and NHS ester.The synthesis mono-functional curcumin derivatives allow us to produce the soluble conjugates whereas bifunctional derivatives would result in insoluble cross-linked products and will also provide one free phenolic group which is necessary for the biological activity of many antioxidants like curcumin. We will characterize the curcumin derivatives by proton NMR and ESI-MS. These mono-functional derivatives of curcumin will then be attached to synthetic polymers and targeting proteins.