User:Daniel Catt/Notebook/Protein Biofilms Exploration

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Project Description/Abstract
We have adopted a proposed method of producing a type of protein biofilm from a paper by Bakshi et al (2011) that uses internal cysteine residues in bovine serum albumin (BSA) to reduce Au(III) to Au(0).1 The gold molecules then biomineralize on the unfolded BSA template, and the resulting conjugated nanoparticles are condensed with zein protein to form the desired film, using ethanol as solvent and glycerol as plasticizer. The incubation times for these reactions were varied experimentally, which, combined with the simplicity of the experiment set-up, provides an ideal research project for undergraduate students. The ultimate goal of this project is to recreate, troubleshoot, and optimize protocols suggested in the paper considering the materials, facilities, and various conditions of the American University chemistry labs.

1Bakshi, S. M.; Kaur, H.; Khullar, P.; Banipal, T. S.; Kaur, G.; Singh, N. Protein Films of Bovine Serum Albumin Conjugated Gold Nanoparticles : A Synthetic Route from Bioconjugated Nanoparticles to Biodegradable Protein Films. ''J. Phys. Chem. C 2011, 115'' (7), 2982-2992. [Link to the paper]