November 15, 2011
Seungha came with me today. Both of our mentors had a seminar to go to. The reason why both of our mentors were going was because Dr. Mao, our professor, invited the speaker, so they were pretty much obligated to go. So we were also able to listen in on the seminar. But as soon as the speaker projected the first slide, "Design of Self-Assembled Peptide Hydrogels For Delivery", I was already completely lost before the seminar even started. I really tried to listen and understand, but it there were too many terms that I didn't understand. I did get a few things out of it though. The speaker's job is to manipulate peptide structures. There are two different ways in doing this. The first is doing media based injections. However, this process is really inefficient which is why they don't focus on it. They use the technique of employing phase transition materials. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I know that this was focus of the seminar. He said that they initially failed when trying this technique and had to try several different trials. They finally figured out the most efficient way. They would design a family of peptides which were highly soluble. The solubility allowed the peptides to be injectable. They've designed between 50 and 60 kinds of peptides so far. One peptide that he focused on was named Max 1. Max 1 is composed of hydrophylic and hydrophobic cells. The significance of this peptide is its ability to self-assemble. When placed in 5 degrees celsius, it unfolds. But when the temperature is raised to 40 degrees celsius, it reassembles. I'm not sure the importance of "self-assembly" but they all seemed to think it is. They he showed some pictures of mice and rats being injected with Max 1. I seemed to be the only one who found the pictures sad and disturbing while everyone else found them fascinating. From then on, I couldn't understand anymore because the speaker went into many more details that completely made no sense. Once the seminar was over it was around 4:00 so they let us go a little early.
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