| Home Department | Harrington Dept. of Bioengineeri |
| ASU Affiliations | Biodesign Center for BioOptical Nanotechnology |
| Areas of Study | Develop fluorescent probes to study membrane proteins. |
Background Current project: Develop novel probes for targeting neural nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Current work includes (1) screening peptides for use as affinity molecules in fluorescent probes, (2) evaluating small-diameter functionalized nanoparticles as fluorophores for these probes, and (3) creation and modification of fluorescent protein fusions to receptor subunits, transfection into mammalian cells and use of fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) to detect putative co-assembly of certain subunits. Long-term goals: Create novel methods to identify biomarkers for basic research and medical diagnostics, and to evaluate efficacy of therapies. |
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