The work described in this dissertation details the development of a biomimetic
materials for use in sensors and therapeutics, based on new advances in material science.
The sensors developed herein target neurodegenerative diseases. Two of the diseases,
the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) and AlzheimerâÂÂs disease (AD),
are diseases associated with the abnormal folding of a protein, thus detecting the disease
is dependent upon developing structure specific sensor technologies. Both sensors
developed in this work take advantage of the unique optical properties associated with
nanoscale metal particles, however they use different types of spectroscopies for optical
detection of the presence of the disease associated abnormal protein, and different types
of recognition elements that bring the disease associated proteins close to the nanoscale
metal particles. In the case of TSEs, the recognition element was a commercially
available antibody. In the case of AD, the recognition element was a molecular scale
self-assembled surface. A therapeutic for AD was developed based on the molecular
scale materials developed for the AD biosensor. Mathematical models were developed that facilitated the rational design of the biosensors described in this work that could also
be used in future biosensor development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4395 |
| Date | 30 October 2006 |
| Creators | Henry, James Edward |
| Contributors | Good, Theresa, Shantz, Daniel |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 2326396 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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