Presidential Young Investigator Award

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The Principal Investigator (PI) intends to research two specific topic areas; Bivalent Antibody - Multivalent Antigen Interactions; and, Structure and Dynamics of beta-Amyloid Protein Aggregation. For the first topic area, experimental results will be used to construct a comprehensive numerical simulation of the complex interactions between antibody and cell-surface antigen. This quantitative analysis should be useful in developing antibody-based diagnostic assays or antigen-targeted therapeutic agents, and in analyzing other receptor-ligand systems. For the second topic area, aggregation of beta-amyloid protein into fibrils and subsequent deposition in the brain is believed to initiate processes leading to abnormalities characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. Techniques developed to carry out this topic area may lead to a better understanding of how beta-amyloid protein aggregation contributes to neurodegenerative processes, and to the development of new methods to investigate protein aggregation.