18 October 2019 Nur Mustafaoglu

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KOÇ UNIVERSITY PHYSICS SEMINAR
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Speaker: Nur Mustafaoglu
Wyss Institute at Harvard University
Title: Advanced diagnostic, therapeutic, and transport applications of antibodies
Date: October 18, 2019
Time: 10:30
Cookie & Tea: SCI 103, 10:15
Place: SCI 103
web: https://physics-seminars.ku.edu.tr/

Abstract:

Antibodies have become widely used agents for clinical treatment of cancers and autoimmune diseases due to their high level of specificity and selectivity toward known target molecules (antigens) found to be overexpressed on cancerous cells. Despite the many techniques that utilize antibodies necessitate that they are modified in some way by conjugating functional ligands to them – endowing them with specific functionalities unique for each intended application – they are still in need of improvement. This talk will be focusing on addressing the particular technical challenges related with site-specific labelling of antibodies in order to enhance diagnostic and therapeutic platforms, specifically concentrating on the great challenge in the field “how to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB)”. Therefore, the talk will cover three major research subjects: i) development of advanced diagnostic methods and tools; ii) efficient, very affordable and indestructible affinity column methods for antibody purification; and iii) development of screening tools for identifying
shuttle molecules that can cross the BBB. In the first part, I will be introducing UV-NBS method for oriented immobilization of antibodies and their Fab
fragments to small scaled diagnostic surfaces, such as microfluidic devices and nanoparticles, while preserving their antigen binding activity and
structure stability. In the second part, I will be talking about designing a novel affinity chromatography technique for purification of antibodies from complex protein environment that is an easy, efficient and cost-effective way. In the
final part, I will be describing an enhanced human BBB model created with microfluidic Organ Chip culture technology that contains human iPSderived brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMVEC) interfaced with primary human pericytes and astrocytes, and that uses a developmentallyinspired differentiation protocol. Additionally, I will provide examples for its usage for drug development and new therapeutic discoveries.

 Short Bio:
Nur Mustafaoglu is a postdoctoral researcher at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. She has two bachelor degrees in molecular biology and genetics and physics engineering from Istanbul Technical University. She also completed a master degree in nano
science and nano engineering from the same university. She was awarded with Fulbright Fellowship to pursue her doctoral degree in the US. She received her PhD in bioengineering from the University of Notre Dame. Her doctoral studies focused on two major research areas: i) developing enhanced
detection systems, and ii) designing easy, inexpensive, and efficient affinity chromatography methods for antibody purification. Her research for biosensing applications was awarded by Berry Family Foundation Graduate Fellowship in Advanced Diagnostics & Therapeutics. She is currently working on developing technologies on physiologically relevant in vitro human blood-brain barrier chip models and their applications. Her PhD and postdoctoral studies yield several publications on prestigious journals such as Nature Communications, ACS Nano, Nanoscale, Langmuir ant others.