[On-demand webinar] Vibrational spectroscopies constitute a diverse set of techniques that can provide valuable information about the structure and behaviour of any biological molecule under a wide range of experimental conditions. As such, the family of Raman and infrared spectroscopies are making significant impact in biology both for research and for applications in detection, characterisation and imaging.
This talk presents a survey of work performed in our lab using Raman scattering, ATR-FTIR and Raman optical activity, which is a chirally sensitive form of Raman.
A number of examples will be discussed in order to highlight the detailed structural insights about structure, organisation and dynamics that can be obtained; including:
- i) quantitative analysis of protein higher order structure from bioinformatics analyses of spectra,
- ii) investigations of protein conformational changes in relation to aggregation and amyloid fibrils,
- iii) probing viral protein and encapsidated RNA structure,
- iv) studies on the role of carbohydrate structure in controlling glycoprotein and polysaccharide organisation and function.
Dr Ewan Blanch obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of New England in Australia in 1996 and then learned about Raman optical activity at the University of Glasgow with Prof. Laurence Barron. In 2003 he started his own group at UMIST, which soon merged to become the University of Manchester, where he is a Reader in the Faculty of Life Sciences and his group is based in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB). Our research is very multidisciplinary and collaborative and involves a strong emphasis on technique development as well as application to a wide range of biological problems.
