This award supports a U.S./Brazil collaborative effort in biophysics between Wayne Reed of the Physics Department at Tulane University, and Mario Politi and Iolanda Cuccovia of the Chemistry Department at the University of Sao Paulo and Dino Zanette of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, both in Brazil. The project will use the Brazilians' expertise in synthetic chemistry and the American expertise in physical chemical experimentation and theory to carry out fluorescence-based measurements on a family of important biological macromolecules (glycosaminoglycans). These experiments should provide data on the electrophoretic mobility, self- diffusion and local electrostatic potentials of these molecules. The ultimate goal of the project is to relate aspects of connective tissue biofunctionality, such as swelling pressure and compressibility, to the molecular properties of glycosaminoglycans. This interdisciplinary effort will utilize synthetic chemical strategies to produce physical probes of macromolecular behavior. Data on such behavior can then be correlated with modern theories of diffusion, electrophoresis and electro- thermodynamics in polymer physics, with structure/functional theories in macromolecular biophysics, and with compressibility data and models in biomechanics. They will also provide the basis and stimulus for the development of new models and theories in these interdisciplinary areas.
