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> *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 256, Bull Run Hall > 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. > > ### >