The adsorption of proteins to solid surfaces is encountered in many fields of science and technology. In many cases, protein adsorption is a favorable, if not a necessary component of the application and yet the exact nature of the adsorption mechanisms and interfacial structures has not been determined. The outstanding questions in the area of protein adsorption to solid surfaces include: 1) the determination of the surface conformation and preferred orientation of adsorbed molecules, 2) an understanding of competitive adsorption effects, and 3) the ability to predict surface properties based on the chemical components of the solid and protein alone. This project will answer several of these questions by application of the fairly young technique of waveguide Raman spectroscopy to the study of interfacial protein conformations. The specific applications are to understand protein adsorption to polymer filtration membranes encountered in bioprocessing and solid-phase immunoassays. In conjunction with macroscopic adsorption studies, e.g., adsorption isotherms and the determination of adsorbed thicknesses, the waveguide Raman studies will provide detailed molecular structure information concerning the adsorbed states of proteins on these types of biopolymer surfaces. One of the advantages of waveguide Raman spectroscopy is that structural information can be obtained from both the adsorbed protein layers and the underlying polymer substrates. Another advantage lies in its ability to determine orientational information about adsorbed layers. By correlating the data obtained in the macroscopic and molecular level experiments, it will be possible to gain predictive ability in the understanding of protein-polymer interactions. %%% Research Planning Grants enable women who have not had prior independent Federal research support to develop a competitive research project. This project involves the use of waveguide Raman spectroscopy for the study of interfacial interactions of proteins with solids. Such interactions occur throughout nature but are not well understood. This project will lead to a better understanding of these processes.
