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*PLEASE NOTE ROOM CHANGE FOR THE DEFENSE* >> *Dissertation Defense Announcement: >> To: The George Mason University Community* >> >> *Takako Takeda >> PhD Bioinformatics Candidate >> * >> *Date: Friday October 22, 2010 >> Time: 10:00 a.m. >> Place: George Mason University >> ** Room 312-G, Occoquan Bldg. >> Prince William campus <http://www.gmu.edu/resources/visitors/findex.html> >> >> Dissertation Chair: Dr. Dmitri Klimov >> Committee members: Dr. Iosif Vaisman, Dr. Estela Blaisten-Barojas, Dr. John Grefenstette* >> >> *Title: "Growth of *A? *Amyloid fibrils studied by computer simulations"* >> >> A copy of the dissertation is on reserve in the Johnson Center >> Library, Fairfax campus. The doctoral project will not be read at >> the meeting, but should be read in advance. >> >> All members of the George Mason University community are invited to >> attend.* >> * >> >> *ABSTRACT: >> * >> Aggregation of A? peptides is related to the onset of Alzheimer's >> disease, but the molecular mechanism of A? fibril formation is still >> poorly understood. Thermodynamics and energetics of the deposition of >> A? monomers on the preformed amyloid fibril were probed by replica >> exchange molecular dynamics with implicit solvent model. Consistent >> with the experiments the results showed that the fibril growth >> follows the dock-lock mechanism. The interactions that stabilize the >> binding of the peptide to the fibril and the preferable binding >> region in the peptides were identified. Also, a single-site >> computational mutation effects on the fibril growth were >> investigated. The results indicated that the strong off-registry side >> chain interactions may impede fibril growth. >> >> ### >>