Paweł Krupa (UG) at Jackson State University (ICN)

I have visited Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi, USA for 4 months (from 17.01.2014 to 19.05.2014) within Work Package 3: Development of novel structural descriptors for nanoparticles.

My goal was to investigate interactions between small gold nanoparticles and biomacromolecules, such as proteins and DNA. A set of important small proteins existing in human organisms and two DNA sequences – standard and palindromic, was chosen to assess binding affinity of gold nanoparticles to macromolecules.

During my stay I was performing extensive studies of these systems by Molecular Dynamics simulations in all atom force-field Amber using experience of Prof. Leszczynski group members about nanoparticles. Preliminary studies confirm experimental observation that very small gold nanoparticles are much more dangerous than bigger ones. Thanks to interesting results I will be continuing research and collaboration to fully examine behavior of investigated systems.

Interdisciplinary Center for Nanotoxicity in JSU is the wonderful place to work, and I greatly acknowledge Professor Jerzy Leszczynski and Dr. Bakhtiyor Rasulev for scientific cooperation and Dr. Shonda Allen and Dr. Julia Saloni for help in every possible aspect.