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2006 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City
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The 2006 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting was held in beautiful Salt Lake
City, February 18-22. Six of us attended the many stimulating presentations by leaders in the field of biophysics, visited the thousands of amazing
posters from students from all over the world, and most importantly, dominated the epic annual reception/dance (imagine: thousands
of slightly drunk, overworked biophysicists getting down to 70's funk music - yes, it's as amusing as it sounds)... Members of the Biomembrane lab presented four very well-received posters on nanopores, membrane arrays, membrane fusion,
and bacterial porins.
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Salt Lake City "City Center"
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Group picture
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Panchika, Sheereen,
and Kim eating Indian food
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Poster Titles and Abstracts
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"Nanopore-Based Detection of Immune Complexes and Viruses"
Uram J. D., Ke K., Hunt A. J., Mayer M.
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"Bilayers of Various Lipid Compositions for Screening Drug-Membrane Interactions"
Majd S., Mayer M.
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"Electrophysiological Characterization of a Previously Unknown Pore-Forming Protein in Treponema denticola"
Rose J.J., Capone R., Fenno J.C., Mayer M.
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"Triggering Fusion of Lipid Membranes in Microfluidic Chambers"
Estes D. J., Lopez S.L., Fuller A.O., Mayer M.
We describe a method that makes it possible to trigger and observe membrane fusion of giant liposomes (diameter > 10 µm) in
microfluidic chambers. Using electroformation from spin-coated films of lipids, we formed densely-packed networks of
surface-attached giant liposomes (consisting of > 100 individual liposomes in close-contact with several adjacent liposomes) in
transparent flow chambers; it was possible to investigate fusogenic agents by simply introducing the molecules and analyzing the
resulting changes of the liposomes. We used this setup to demonstrate membrane fusion induced by several well-studied mechanisms,
including Ca2+, polyethylene glycol, and biospecific tethering. Directly observing many liposomes in parallel proved useful to
study fusion events in the presence of low concentrations of fusogenic agent, when fusion was rare and probabilistic. We applied
this microfluidic fusion assay to investigate a novel peptide, WT-B5, from the cellular B5 surface protein, that is essential for
entry of herpes simplex virus into cells. WT-B5 triggered fusion of liposomes at an approximately 6 times higher probability than
control peptides. Using surface-attached liposomes in microfluidic chambers offers a method to observe membrane fusion of giant liposomes
in parallel without requiring the use of micromanipulators and to rapidly characterize novel fusogenic agents under well-defined conditions.
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