From September 10th to November 9th, PhD student Barbara Pem will be conducting research at the Institute of Chemistry, University of Graz as a part of her research stay financed by a Short-Term Scholarship of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS).
Under the supervision of Prof Klaus Zangger, she will conduct a project titled “Interaction of proteins with metallic nanoparticles – the role of thiol residues”. She will research the interactions of silver nanoparticles of different sizes and surface coatings with model proteins using the methods of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Protein NMR is a special set of techniques which is currently not used anywhere in Croatia. It provides an innovative way of studying the nano-bio interface. End goals of the project are characterization of protein binding to the surface of a nanoparticle, determination of binding constants and orientations of proteins on the particle surface, and also training the student Barbara Pem for the use of state-of-the-art techniques of NMR analysis.