Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Ramesh Iyer
AbbVie Inc, USA
Keynote: Transient expression of monoclonal antibody and bispecific fragments, and fragment/ antigen complexes for pharmaceutical discovery research
Time : 11:40-12:05
Biography:
Ramesh Iyer has completed his PhD from the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) and Postdoctoral studies from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA). He is a Sr Scientist in the Global Biologics group at AbbVie Inc. His group supports the research and development of biologics for various therapeutic areas within AbbVie Discovery.
Abstract:
Fragments, such as F(ab) and F(ab’)2, and fragment complexes are widely required for various research and development activities in biopharmaceutical discovery. We describe the production of fragments (F(ab) and F(ab’)2) from a variety of parent molecules (monoclonal antibody and DVD-Ig) and frameworks (m IgG1, mIgG2a, hu IgG1, hu IgG4) by transient expression in HEK293 cells.The method eliminates the need to use enzyme digestion of parent molecules. We have also developed a route for the production of fragment/antigen complexes by direct co-expression in HEK293 for crystallization purpose that allows for higher throughput screening of Fab and/or antigen constructs. The resulting products were characterized by biophysical techniques, and crystallization experiments demonstrated that the fragments and fragment/antigen complexes produced diffraction quality crystals suitable for X-ray crystallographic analysis.
Keynote Forum
Ramesh K Agarwal
Washington University in St Louis, USA
Keynote: Design of metamaterials using transformation physics
Time : 09:10-09:50
Biography:
Ramesh K Agarwal is the William Palm Professor of Engineering at Washington University in St Louis from 1994 to 2001, he was the Sam Bloomfield Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University in Kansas. From 1978 to 1994, he worked in various scientific and managerial positions at McDonnell Douglas Research Laboratories in St Louis. He became the Program Director and McDonnell Douglas Fellow in 1990. He received PhD in Aeronautical Sciences from Stanford University in 1975, MS in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 1968. He is the author and co-author of over 600 publications and serves on the editorial board of 20+ journals. He has given many plenary, keynote and invited lectures at various national and international conferences worldwide. He is a Fellow of AAAS, ASME, AIAA, IEEE, SAE, and SME.
Abstract:
Metamaterials are rationally designed artificial materials composed of tailored functional building blocks densely packed into an effective (crystalline) material. While metamaterials historically are primarily thought to be associated with negative refractive indices and invisibility cloaking in electromagnetism or optics, it turns out that the simple metamaterial concept also applies to many other areas of physics namely the thermodynamics, classical mechanics (including elastostatics, acoustics, fluid dynamics and elastodynamics) and in principle also to the quantum mechanics. This lecture will review the basic concepts and analogies behind the thermodynamic, acoustic, elastodynamic/elastostatic, and electromagnetic metamaterials and differences among them. It will provide an overview of the theory, the current state of the art and example applications of various types of metamaterials. The review will also discuss the homogeneous as well as inhomogeneous metamaterial architectures designed by coordinate-transformation-based approaches analogous to transformation optics. The application examples will include laminates, thermal cloaks, thermal concentrators and inverters, anisotropic acoustic metamaterials, acoustic free-space and carpet cloaks, and mechanical metamaterials with negative dynamic mass density, negative dynamic bulk modulus, or negative phase velocity. Finally an example of quantum-mechanical matter-wave cloaking will be provided.
Keynote Forum
Zygmunt Derewenda
University of Virginia, USA
Keynote: Protein crystallization by mutational surface engineering
Time : 09:50-10:30
Biography:
Zygmunt Derewenda obtained PhD and DSc degrees from the University of Lodz in Poland. His Postdoctoral studies were conducted at the University of York, UK. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Virginia, where he is currently a Harrison Distinguished Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He has published more than 150 papers on a range of subjects in structural biology, which were cited over 11,000 times (H-factor 58).
Abstract:
Protein crystallization constitutes a major bottleneck in the high-resolution structural characterization of proteins and their complexes. It is estimated that the probability of obtaining single crystals as a result of screening ranges from less than 1% to 25%, depending on the source and biophysical properties of the target protein or complex. A further complication arises if the crystals lack diffraction quality, impeding high-resolution data collection. Nearly two decades ago we proposed a new approach to protein crystallization based on rational surface engineering to generate surface patches with an enhanced propensity to form crystal contacts. The method relies on the mutational replacement of surface residues with high conformational entropy, such as Lys and Glu/Gln with Ala or other small amino acids. The design of variants with enhanced crystallization propensity is possible using a dedicated server (http://services.mbi.ucla.edu/SER/). This methodology, known as Surface Entropy Reduction (SER), has been successfully used in hundreds of studies, not only to obtain crystals of otherwise intractable proteins or complexes, but also to generate new crystal forms with improved diffraction quality allowing to collect X-ray data to much higher resolution than that recorded for the wild-type crystals. In addition, the database of protein crystal structures determined with the help of SER provides interesting insights into the mechanistic aspects of protein crystallization.
Keynote Forum
Georges Denes
Concordia University, Canada
Keynote: When crystallography alone fails, it can use help from tin-119 Mossbauer spectroscopy
Time : 10:50-11:30
Biography:
Georges Dénès is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Concordia University, Canada. He has completed his Ph.D. at Universite de Rennes I. His research interests are solid-state inorganic chemistry. He has been teaching general chemistry, inorganic (main group) chemistry and he has published articles in various journals.
Abstract:
Crystallography is unquestionably the most powerful method for obtaining structural data about crystalline solids. However, there are some cases where even the most powerful method can benefit from help from techniques that are not used for structural determination. In the current work, 119Sn Mossbauer spectroscopy was used to assist crystallography, for finding the tin(II) positions in the unit cell and determine a tin(II) coordination in agreement with both the diffraction data and the tin electronic structure. The first case will show that even high-quality single crystal data do not always guarantee that the right solution will be obtained. A first attempt at the structure of α−SnF2 yielded the tin positions with very reasonable R and Rw residuals, 0.23-0.25. However, the fluorine positions could not be found. After many other attempts, the full crystal structure was finally solved 14 years later. The difference in the tin position between the two solutions was that, in the latter, half of the tin atoms were on special sites, however, the tin sublattice was identical. Because the tin sites in the initial solution gave very reasonable residuals, 14 years of efforts were wasted. The presentation will show that this could have been avoided using 119Sn Mossbauer spectroscopy. This was possible since the spectrum had already been recorded. It will also be shown how Mossbauer spectroscopy can help determine the tin coordination, when combined with powder diffraction data, in the case of disordered structures. The presence of tin(II), disordered with a metal ion in cubic coordination, when diffraction shows there is no lattice distortion and no superstructure, suggests that tin has also a cubic coordination. This would require the tin lone pair to be non-stereo active, however, Mossbauer spectroscopy shows it is stereo active. The same technique helps to suggest an alternate disordered structure in agreement with the X-ray powder diffraction data. Furthermore, 119Sn Mossbauer spectroscopy was also used to assist diffraction for solving the crystal structure of a compound suffering from an extreme case of preferred orientation. The presentation will show the hurdles faced by diffraction methods alone, and how we designed the use of Mossbauer spectroscopy in order to rescue crystallography.
- Materials Science & Engineering| Nanotechnology in Materials Science| Batteries and Energy Materials| Advanced Crystallography| Crystallography in Biology| Crystallography in Materials Science
Chair
Gen Long
St. John’s University, USA
Session Introduction
Ramesh Iyer
AbbVie Inc, USA
Title: Transient expression of monoclonal antibody and bispecific fragments, and fragment/ antigen complexes for pharmaceutical discovery research
Time : 11:40-12:05
Biography:
Ramesh Iyer has completed his PhD from the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY) and Postdoctoral studies from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA). He is a Sr Scientist in the Global Biologics group at AbbVie Inc. His group supports the research and development of biologics for various therapeutic areas within AbbVie Discovery.
Abstract:
Fragments, such as F(ab) and F(ab’)2, and fragment complexes are widely required for various research and development activities in biopharmaceutical discovery. We describe the production of fragments (F(ab) and F(ab’)2) from a variety of parent molecules (monoclonal antibody and DVD-Ig) and frameworks (m IgG1, mIgG2a, hu IgG1, hu IgG4) by transient expression in HEK293 cells.The method eliminates the need to use enzyme digestion of parent molecules. We have also developed a route for the production of fragment/antigen complexes by direct co-expression in HEK293 for crystallization purpose that allows for higher throughput screening of Fab and/or antigen constructs. The resulting products were characterized by biophysical techniques, and crystallization experiments demonstrated that the fragments and fragment/antigen complexes produced diffraction quality crystals suitable for X-ray crystallographic analysis.
Gen Long
St. John’s University, USA
Title: XRD and nanostructures based third generation solar cell
Time : 12:05-12:30
Biography:
Gen Long received his BS in Physics from Shandong University, China and his PhD in Physics from University at Buffalo. He worked in Global Foundries (US) as senior integration engineer on 14nm FinFET technology before joined St John’s University as Assistant Professor in Physics. His research area mainly focuses on the synthesis, characterization and device applications of novel metal and semiconductor nanostructures (nanoparticles, nanowires, nanorods, nanodisks, nanoplatelets, etc. made by solution-phase or gas-phase growth). He is an active member of APS, MRS, and AAPT.
Abstract:
Nanostructures based third generation solar cell presents a promising future of inexpensive, highly-efficient, and scalable new generation of solar cell industry. Various nanostructures, materials systems, and device architecture have been extensively studied; yet in all of the advantages and disadvantages co-exist. XRD, as a characterization tool, provides unique insight into the materials compositions, device, and device performance and stability, etc. In this talk, an overview of the recent progress in nanostructures based third generation solar cell will be given. Different approaches to overcome the limits in the nanostructures based solar cell will be discussed as well.
Lance Hubbard
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA
Title: Rugged nanoparticle tracers for mass tracking in explosive events
Time : 12:30-12:55
Biography:
Lance Hubbard has completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Arizona. He is currently a staff materials scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory focusing on nanomaterial integration, and semiconductor-based detector design. He has papers and patents related to nanomaterials integration into semiconductor processes, corrosion of ceramics under monatomic oxygen, electroless deposition of metals, and Raman/radio interference based spectroscopy for industrial process control. Current research includes studies on nanoparticles for mass tracking, production modeling of uranium fuel foils, and AlGaN avalanche photodiode structures.
Abstract:
Tracing the flow of solid matter during explosions requires elements with uniquely identifiable signatures. Pigments tagged with luminescent core-shell nanoparticles (CSNPs) can have tunable photoluminescence (PL) depending on the material composition and core/shell thicknesses. The particles can be ruggedized with thick silica encapsulate to protect the luminescent inner architecture during finite periods of elevated temperatures. Incorporation of the CSNPs into a matrix allows for identification (ID) of debris originating from the tagged material. Five types of zinc sulfide quantum dots were synthesized and isolated in silica shells. The shelled dots were molecularly bound to five commercially obtained luminescent powders. The combination of 5 dots and 5 powders enables a matrix of 25 unique pigments that can be applied for mass tracking and model confirmation. The 25 pigments have spectral components that luminesce under different wavelengths. The use of commercial pigments enables field identification for collection and CSNPs allow for laboratory confirmation of the origin of the mass. The bound powders and luminescent CSNPs were suspended in a hydrated silica gel pending incorporation into materials. Finally, the mass tracking pigments were incorporated into temperature resistance paints, synthetic stone, and controlled porous glass. The incorporation of temperature resistant CSNPs and commercial pigments has enabled unique identifiers, which allow for the tracking of mass through explosive events and other inaccessible environments.
Victor Ovcharenko
International Tomography Center, Russia
Title: Heterospin crystal: New sensor to the external pressure
Time : 13:55-14:20
Biography:
Victor Ovcharenko has his expertise in the design of molecular magnets and investigation of spin transitions, “breathing crystals” and magneto-structural correlations in heterospin compounds. He developed new methods of selective synthesis of highly dimensional heterospin systems based on metal complexes with stable organic radicals, investigated magneto-structural correlations inherent in heterospin compounds, created a new type of breathing crystals and explained the mechanical activity of these crystals (breathing crystals, jumping crystals, dancing crystals).
Abstract:
Stable organic radicals are valuable tools for solving a wide variety of fundamental problems. Among these, nitroxides are the most persistent organic paramagnets which widely used in the synthesis of heterospin compounds. Reactions between the transition metal and nitroxides are convenient and effective methods for the synthesis of different multispin molecules. The sensitivity of their magnetic properties to the local environment and intramolecular effects, as well as long half-lives, make them attractive tools in various fields, especially in molecular magnetism, biochemistry, biophysics, and materials science. They are promising as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. They have always attracted the attention of researchers as multispin building blocks, which were used for the synthesis of heterospin molecular magnets. Recently, Cu(II) complexes with nitroxides were used to create breathing crystals. When the temperature or/and pressure changes, the solid compounds undergo structural rearrangements accompanied by magnetic effects similar to spin crossover. The observed anomalies are caused by the reversible spatial dynamics of Jahn-Teller coordination units containing heterospin exchange clusters. The high mechanical stability of the multispin crystals, i.e., their ability to be reversibly compressed and expanded in the temperature range of phase transition, underlies the term ‘breathing crystals’. Reversible single crystal to single crystal polymerization–depolymerization coordination reactions for a transition metal complexes with stable organic radicals initiated by variation of temperature was found too. It was found that transition metal complexes with kinetically stable nitroxides are promising compounds that can serve as a new type of highly sensitive sensor to the external pressure. Noteworthy, structural rearrangements in breathing crystals can be essentially different. It depends on which parameter i.e. temperature or pressure was changed.
James Kennedy
ThREE Consulting, USA
Title: Multi-national rare earth materials value chain & research facility
Time : 14:20-14:45
Biography:
James Kennedy has spent nearly 10 years working on this issue at the federal and international level. He was an invited expert speaker at the United Nations IAEA conference, the European Union rare earth conference and has had meetings with the current and previous Administration, the Pentagon and the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. His proposal is currently under consideration with the current Administration. He earned a Master’s degree in Political Economics and Public Policy from Washington University, St. Louis.
Abstract:
The United States, Japan, Korea, the EU and the rest of the world have found themselves entirely dependent on China for rare earth. The Chinese global rare earth monopoly dominates at all levels, from resource production to metallurgy, to new applications, to new patent applications. With China dominating the production and internal consumption of at least 85% of all value-added rare earth materials, in a politically saturated environment of material science and techno-economic leadership, it will continue to lead the world in future material science developments. The non-Chinese world’s contribution to rare earth-related material science developments will shrink in China’s rear view mirror. Non-Chinese efforts to compete in the production of rare earth resources have mostly ended badly. Resources like rare earth oxides have no meaningful technology or defense application. China dominates the world in resource, oxide and post-oxide materials production. China has used its multi-level monopoly to capture much of the world’s rare earth dependent technology and industry. This is a significant problem because advances in material science are largely stimulated by the competitive economic pull of a vibrant technology sector. Today most of the world’s advanced rare earth technology applications happen in China. How does the non-Chinese world compete with this state-sponsored juggernaut? The current administration is considering the establishment of a multi-national rare earth resource and value chain that could act as a modern Bell Laboratory for its non-Chinese members. The proposal calls for a privately owned and operated facility that would act as a cooperative for all of its owner/end-users: diverse technology companies from around the world. The cooperative would utilize rare earth resources that are currently mined but disposed of to avoid the 1980 NRC & IAEA regulations which helped create China’s monopoly and would be impervious to Chinese price manipulation.
Orly Dym
Structural Proteomics Unit, Israel
Title: The impact of crystallization conditions, protein constructs and space groups on structure-based drug design
Time : 14:45-15:10
Biography:
She completed her PhD in 1994 from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel under the supervision of Prof Joel Sussman and postdoctoral studies from the University of California Los Angeles, under the supervision of Prof David Eisenberg. Since 2003 she is the Crystallographer at the Structural Proteomics Unit (SPU), Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. For the last 15 years she has been a member of the SPU where she lead the unit of protein crystallography which include protein crystallization, elucidating the three-dimensional (3D) structure of proteins. She had determined the 3D structure of 350 proteins and protein complexes, some related to human disease, and others including engineered non-natural enzymes and non-natural protein complexes. Some has contributed to the development of drugs, while one has directly benefited enzyme replacement therapy for a human disease. In addition, she has carried out detailed structural analysis on many of these structures, which has greatly aided the understanding the correlation between 3D structure, function, selectivity and stability. She has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals, 10 of which as first author
Abstract:
The 3D structure of apo proteins and proteins with inhibitors provide the basis for structure-based drug design studies and is also utilized in docking procedures to search for more potent drug. Specific examples for drug design of acetyl cholinesterase (AChE) and Phosphotriesterase (PTE) using X-ray crystallography will be presented. Comparative analysis between the computational docking drug design approach and the AChE crystal structures reviled that the position of the ligands within the active-site gorge of the enzyme is influenced by the crystallization conditions. Spectroscopic evidence and thermal stability results supported such a difference in ligand positioning. These results have implications for structure-based drug design using docking procedures. We also analyzed nineteen crystal structures of the apo and several phosphonate (OP) analogs bound to few highly evolved PTE variants. In addition to providing insights into the binding modes of OPs into the active site of the different PTE variants, the data reveal the importance of tags used for protein expression, the ‘choice of the appropriate’ crystallization conditions, the protein constructs and the space groups and their implications for structure-based drug design
Olga Tsurtsumia
Georgian Technical University, Georgia
Title: Microstructure and high temperature properties of Al rich diffusion zone on the surface of 9% Cr steel P92
Time : 15:10-15:35
Biography:
The presenting author is research professor at the Republic Center for Structure Research of the Georgian Technical University, Georgia. She has a proven track record in the field of materials science and is well known in high temperature corrosion community. She has a very wide international working experience and longtime collaboration with the researchers in the materials field from Germany, France, United States and Spain. She has more than 50 publications and has been PI of many national and international scientific research projects already accomplished or ongoing. Dr.Tsurtsumia is an Alexander von Humboldt fellow and two fold Fulbright scholar
Abstract:
The state of the art steam power plants operated on fossil fuels as well as renewable power generating systems require the wide range of the parts and the unites made of the high temperature resistant materials. It is known that one of the possible ways of increasing the overall efficiency of the plants in the course of reduction in the emission of carbon containing pollutants in the atmosphere is the rising of working temperatures in some of their critical segments. This, in its turn, requires modernization and optimization of the already existing HT materials. P92 is a commercially available ferritic/martensitic 9% Cr steel which is widely used in the power plants at the temperatures up to 600 OC, meeting all crucial requirements from the mechanical- and corrosion resistance standpoints. But the foreseen increased operating temperatures in the future power plants are envisaged to be far beyond those P92 steel was designed for. Improvement of the high temperature oxidation resistance of this steel through the application of Al coating by slurry method was successfully accomplished. HT discontinuous oxidation tests were performed on slurry aluminized and uncoated P92 samples in the laboratory atmosphere for 3000 hours at 650OC and 750OC. In contrast to the uncoated P92, which is a chromia former material, TGO on slurry aluminized steel P92 was found to be alumina. The considerable decrease in the oxide growth rate was detected on the aluminized samples at both oxidation temperatures. The microstructure of the Al diffusion zone and that of the protective oxide scale developed during long term HT experiments was comprehensively studied from the top surfaces and cross sections of samples. For that the SEM/EDS, FIB (slicing tomography mode), XRD and EPMA methods were complexly utilized
Juan Carlos Salcedo Reyes
Pontifical Xavierian University, Colombia
Title: SERS stem cells bio-sensor based on Au/ SiO2 colloidal crystals substrates
Biography:
Juan Carlos Salcedo Reyes has completed his PhD at Cinvestav, México D.F., postdoctoral research at University of Texas at Dallas and Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales, Madrid, Spain. More than 30 scientific papers, 1 Colombian patent, and 1 US patent. Editor in chief, Universitas Scientiarum (Scientific journal of the faculty of sciences, Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá D.C., Colombia)
Abstract:
Colloidal crystals (CC) are self-assembled metamaterials with a periodic refractive index fabricated from colloidal SiO2 or polystyrene spheres. Lately, different structured porous films template by CCs are being used as substrates in Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). Taking into account that, due to the localized surface plasmon resonance phenomenon, SERS substrates should satisfice conditions of nanoscale structure (porosity), periodicity and chemical stability, in this work, we use a thin film (50 nm) of gold sublimated on a 250 nm SiO2 based CC in order to detect changes of cellular biochemistry of stem cells by SERS
- Emerging technologies in materials science| Polymer Science and Technology| Materials Chemistry and Physics| Chemical Crystallography| Crystal Growth and Crystallization| X-ray Techniques in Crystallography and Applications
Chair
Lance Hubbard
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA
