Professor Feimeng Zhou of California State L A University is supported by the Chemical Measurement and Imaging (CMI) Program in the Division of Chemistry to interface surface plasmon resonance (SPR) with various analytical and separation techniques and use the hyphenated analytical tools to study molecular binding events and to identify biomarkers of relevance to neurological disorders. Three related projects are proposed. Electrochemical flow-injection SPR will be used to determine ligand-receptor binding; imaging SPR will be used for high-throughput screening of potential inhibitors of beta-secretase, which is relevant to the pathology of Alzheimer's disease; and label-free SPR will be combined with size-exclusion chromatography for the separation and detection of Alzheimer's disease-related peptides and protein fragments.
If successful, the proposed research will lead to the development of new hyphenated analytical tools which may positively impact the diagnosis and therapy of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders. Undergraduate students in a minority serving institution will be trained in analytical instrumentation, device fabrication, surface chemistry, biosensor, and neurochemistry, and will be motivated to pursue advanced studies in chemistry.
