2008 Woodie Awards
Research in Bone Mineralization and Drug Delivery
Meir Saadia
Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: Science & Technology
The drilling, cutting, and building of the construction workers wasn't the only action taking place on the Wilf Campus this summer. Chemistry research was also continuing in full force. Despite all the mess and noise of the construction, Dr. Lance Silverman, assistant professor of Chemistry, is one of many faculty members who continued their research through the summer months along with the help of several students. Dr. Silverman's research is focused on applications that would improve the health and well-being of patients with a broad range of medical conditions affecting their bones or teeth.
This summer we concentrated on the study of hydroxyapatite, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, an inorganic mineral that makes up most of our bones and teeth, as well as proteins that affect mineral growth. The objective is to better understand how proteins control mineral formation in the body's normal development process. Ultimately, this could lead to our ability to increase bone growth for patients who have lost bone mass from disease or injury and could also lead to our ability to prevent pathological mineralization, such as in kidney stones or gout.
The first project which we worked on this summer involved running seeded crystal growth studies using a pH-stat automated titration instrument. We measured the rate of crystal growth using automated titration with base to maintain a constant, physiological pH. Several different peptides that inhibited mineral crystallization were studied. Some peptides were ordered from commercial companies and other compounds critical to our studies were synthesized by Ruth Fried, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who joined the lab for five weeks during July and August. These studies included hexapeptides of aspartate and glutamate, as well as block copolymers with polyaspartate and polyethylene glycol blocks.
Final synthesis steps that involved removal of amino acid protecting groups and product purification were preformed on campus. Adsorption isotherms of these peptides, characterizing how they adhere to mineral, were also measured using ultraviolet spectroscopy and fluorescence techniques.
This summer we concentrated on the study of hydroxyapatite, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, an inorganic mineral that makes up most of our bones and teeth, as well as proteins that affect mineral growth. The objective is to better understand how proteins control mineral formation in the body's normal development process. Ultimately, this could lead to our ability to increase bone growth for patients who have lost bone mass from disease or injury and could also lead to our ability to prevent pathological mineralization, such as in kidney stones or gout.
The first project which we worked on this summer involved running seeded crystal growth studies using a pH-stat automated titration instrument. We measured the rate of crystal growth using automated titration with base to maintain a constant, physiological pH. Several different peptides that inhibited mineral crystallization were studied. Some peptides were ordered from commercial companies and other compounds critical to our studies were synthesized by Ruth Fried, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who joined the lab for five weeks during July and August. These studies included hexapeptides of aspartate and glutamate, as well as block copolymers with polyaspartate and polyethylene glycol blocks.
Final synthesis steps that involved removal of amino acid protecting groups and product purification were preformed on campus. Adsorption isotherms of these peptides, characterizing how they adhere to mineral, were also measured using ultraviolet spectroscopy and fluorescence techniques.
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