A team of faculty researchers primarily from the School of Medicine and School of Pharmacy and Health Professions has received a $400,000 grant from EpSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research: A National Science Foundation Program) to purchase a unique surface plasmon resonance (SPR) instrument to study biomolecular interactions in different human disease conditions. The instrument will facilitate the use of label-free systems which will assist in understanding the communications between proteins and drug interactions.
The GE Healthcare BiaCore SPR system is used primarily in pharmaceutical development, quality control, and basic life science research. This unique instrument will help evaluate pharmacologically effective biological entities to identify downstream toxicity, immunogenicity, efficacy profiles and proceed through discovery research by decreasing the risks of target failures.
The team includes:
Jay Bhatt, PhD, research assistant professor, Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, School of Medicine. Bhatt has interest in using the BiaCore instrument to determine the specificity and affinity of the proteins that interact with the Flippase ATP8A2 mutant. His studies on the Flippases ATPases will add insights into the protein trafficking from the exoplasm to cytoplasm across cell membranes. Bhatt anticipates that the novel protein interacting information obtained using the BiaCore instrument will help in understanding the disease phenomenon and in identification of new molecular targets for disease treatment.
Alekha Dash, RPh, PhD, professor and chair, School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. Dash is interested in evaluating site-specific targeting of the surface modified nanoparticles and analyze their off rates and binding strengths using BiaCore SPR system. His studies will identify suitable ligands, small molecules or antibodies that are capable of recognizing receptors specific to the site and target of interest. These studies would prove the use of our modified nanoparticles as a therapeutic approach for disease prevention.
Shashank Dravid, PhD, associate professor, Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, School of Medicine and principle investigator of this grant. Dravid intends to use the BiaCore SPR system to identify the specificity and the affinity of key regulatory proteins in neurons and their binding kinetics. His studies will enable him to understand the regulatory properties of target proteins in the neural synapses and circuits, and their effects on neurological and behavioral aspects in humans.
Gopal Jadhav, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, School of Medicine. Jadhav has prior experience in working with the BiaCore instrument and has productively used Biacore high-throughput screening module to detect direct interactions of chemical compounds to the target protein in identifying novel drug like molecules. His studies are also focused on identifying absolute measurement of kinetic constants, and the thermodynamic characteristics of his recently identified pool of 162 potential druglike molecules which were found to effectively interact with cellular inflammation mediator. He believes that targeted inhibition of this pro-inflammatory protein using the effective candidate drugs from his identified pool of molecules will have greater applications that can be tested in many immune mediated inflammatory disorders/diseases.
Sandor Lovas, PhD, professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine. Lovas plans to use BiaCore SPR system to test the inhibitory effect of the peptides that he developed against squamous cell carcinoma by interfering the protein-protein interactions.
Yaping Tu, PhD, professor, Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, School of Medicine. Tu is interested in studying airway innervation in mice exposed to early-life environmental cigarette smoke (ECS). ECS triggers inflammation characterized by elevated inflammatory cytokines to augment neurotrophic signals. His plans in using BiaCore SPR system is to screen a library of FDA approved drugs which will inhibit neurite growth and determine their interactions with target protein.
Jian Zuo, PhD, professor and chair, Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine. Zuo intends to use BiaCore SPR system to screen FDA approved drug-targeting proteins to prevent hearing loss. His studies will identify novel drug-protein interactions and provide information on the possible in-vivo molecular mechanisms.
Chandra Boosani, PhD, Western University of Healthsciences. Boosani plans to analyze and identify disease associated regulatory proteins that drives epigenetic mechanisms to promote cardiac restenosis. He believes that the BiaCore SPR system is critical for his studies to identify new target proteins from the total cellular proteome and assists in developing primary and secondary drug targets to prevent restenosis.
Ivana Simonovic, Biacore Sales Specialist, GE Healthcare. Simonovic will assist in the SPR installation and training at Creighton University and will provide technical resources and protocols in operating this instrument.
