Structure-function studies of antimicrobial and fusogenic peptides by solid state NMR spectroscopy and MD simulation
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jason Crain (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Jones A
(2013)
Electronically coarse-grained molecular dynamics using quantum Drude oscillators
in Molecular Physics
Jones A
(2013)
Quantum Drude oscillator model of atoms and molecules: Many-body polarization and dispersion interactions for atomistic simulation
in Physical Review B
Jones A
(2013)
Electronically coarse-grained model for water.
in Physical review letters
Rakowska PD
(2013)
Nanoscale imaging reveals laterally expanding antimicrobial pores in lipid bilayers.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Ryan L
(2013)
Anti-antimicrobial peptides: folding-mediated host defense antagonists.
in The Journal of biological chemistry
| Description | The initial materials of interest for the piezoelectronic transistor (PET) have been the relaxor piezoelectrics discovered in the 1990's for actuation. Currently the only viable candidate PR materials are rare earth intermediate valence chalcogenide compounds such as SmSe and SmxEu1-xS [3]. The transition in these materials is iso-structural avoiding hysteresis and allowing for a continuous change in resistivity of several orders of magnitude. However, several GPa of pressure are required to switch them which necessitates technological breakthroughs in piezoelectric actuator size scaling and processing. The key result is the demonstration that within the existing materials palette, the PET device can be electronically switched at voltages approaching an order of magnitude lower than conventional CMOS transistors. This is subject to various geometric design optimizations which have been developed as part of the REG contribution. We also note that this work was produced with the REG researcher embedded at NPL and also at IBM's Research Headquarters in Yorktown Heights, USA. Two publications have been produced and two more are in the pipeline. Overall, the results are part of an emerging portfolio of data which gives confidence in the developmental pathway towards a deployable high-performance, low-power device on a 10-15 year time horizon. |
| Exploitation Route | Yes. The findings led to several follow on activities including a major Horizon 2020 bid which has just started involving IBM, NPL, several EU universities and SMEs. |
| Sectors | Electronics |
| Description | The project, has contributed to the development of a new international initiative to address antimicrobial effort in antimicrobial resistance. In response to this challenge we propose an international, coordinated effort on cognitive computing for antimicrobial discovery with an NPL-led core consortium including the Turing Institute, IBM and NIST. Our goal is to harness leading-edge cognitive approaches to orchestrate big-data from predictive modelling with verified data sets, human insight and the rigour of biomolecular metrology in order to provide a disruptive step change in antimicrobial discovery. Our approach is fundamentally different from other R&D programmes and is to translate all the wealth of chemical information available in the natural ability of different organisms to fight infection into prediction algorithms that will enable a virtually inexhaustible pipeline of new antimicrobials able to rapidly recognize and destroy pathogens. Such information is encoded in short amino-acid sequences that are often presented as hidden fragments in proteins, of which there are countless numbers. The validation of prediction algorithms that will decode and translate this information will provide a molecular basis for new-era antimicrobials (antibiotics, biofilm-resistant devices, topical antimicrobial formulations, in situ antimicrobial interfaces and sensors). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Electronics |
| Impact Types | Economic |