Unravelling the nature of hair: How protein composition and structure responds to damage

头发护理的使用在世界上许多国家都很常见。这些可能涉及到反应化学处理，以改变头发蛋白质(角蛋白)，但往往有害于头发的结构和组成。来自多种来源的修复蛋白和蛋白水解物经常被添加到护发配方中，因为它们已经被证明可以渗透到头发的皮质中，在某些情况下已经被证明可以改变头发的物理甚至水分结合特性。然而，令人惊讶的是，关于头发的蛋白质组成的信息很少，而且还不能在任何程度上确定化学处理导致头发中的哪些蛋白质受损或丢失，以及这些蛋白质是否可以被类似的或相同的蛋白质取代来恢复头发的性质。成功的候选人将有机会通过解决我们知识中的根本差距并通过我们的工业合作伙伴具有产生现实世界影响的潜力来探索这一令人兴奋的领域。候选人将通过成为国际、世界领先的研究小组的团队成员来发展，在那里将提供技术培训和软技能，并根据他们的背景和经验进行量身定制。该项目将使用最先进的基于质谱学的蛋白质组学来表征头发的蛋白质组成，并确定哪些头发因使用破坏性治疗而丢失或修改。这将与最先进的单纤维机械测试和形态分析相结合，将结构与功能联系起来。随后，将分析互补的修复蛋白质和蛋白质水解物，并将它们的序列与头发中发现的序列进行比较，然后将它们应用于受损的头发，并确定它们是否可以恢复自然功能。

The use of hair treatments is common across many countries in the world. These can involve a reactive chemical treatment in order to modify hair proteins (keratins) but are often detrimental to hair structure and composition. Restorative proteins and protein hydrolysates from many sources are frequently added to hair care formulations as they have been proven to penetrate into the hair's cortex and in some cases have been shown to modify the physical and even moisture binding properties of hair.However, surprisingly little information is available regarding the protein composition of hair and it is not known to any degree of certainty which proteins are damaged or lost from hair as a consequence of chemical treatments and if these can be replaced by similar, or identical proteins to restore the properties of the hair. The successful candidate will get the opportunity to explore this exciting area by addressing a fundamental gap in our knowledge and through our industrial partner have the potential to make a real world impact.The candidate will be developed by a becoming a team-member of a international, world leading research groups, where both technical training and soft skills will be provided and tailored to their background and experience. The project will use state of the art mass spectrometry-based proteomics to characterise the protein composition of hair and determine which that are lost or modified due to the use of damaging treatments. This will be combined with state of the art single fibre mechanical testing and morphological analysis to relate structure to function. Subsequently complementary restorative proteins and protein hydrolysates will be analysed and their sequences compared to those found within the hair before applying them to damaged hair and determining if they can restore natural functions .