Speaker: J. Kohlbrecher, Laboratory for Neutron Scattering, Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland

Date: 2011-09-13

Time: 10:15

Place: Chemistry Department, Lecture Hall B, Getingevägen 60, 222 41 LUND.

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Abstract: Magnetic field effects on biological molecules are rarely observed, due to the small diamagnetic susceptibility of individual molecules. In self-assembly systems, such as phospholipid bilayers, where the molecules are aggregated parallel to each other, the anisotropy of the diamagnetic susceptibility become additive and a magnetic orientation in a magnetic field becomes possible. A well known system, where this magnetic orientation has been exploited, is a bicellar mixture of long and short chain phospholipids used in NMR studies of transmembrane proteins. By doping these aggregates with paramagnetic lanthanides conferring a large magnetic moment, the responsiveness to magnetic fields can be enhanced. In the first part of this talk the effect of magnetic fields on phospholipid vesicles and bicelles containing a chelator-lipid with complexed paramagnetic lanthanides will be shown. Another route to add magnetic response to lipid bilayers would be to incorporate ferromagnetic nanoparticles into them. The second part of this talk will show a successful attempt to implement iron oxide nanoparticles into the membrane of a lipid vesicle to control the release through magnetic actuation.