SEMINAR

Amyloidosis from a Physical Biochemistry Perspective

Abstract

Amyloidosis is the name given to a family of debilitating diseases which are all associated with the deposition of linear protein aggregates, known as amyloid fibers, into various tissues and organs within the body. Important examples of the amyloidosis disease spectrum include Alzheimer’s disease and Type 2 diabetes. Other well-known examples of infectious amyloidosis include the infectious spongiform encephalopathies, Kuru and Mad Cow’s disease. Here I describe results gathered from a range of physical measurements and computer simulations which I believe provides a very powerful synthesizing capability for considering the amyloidosis diseases through a single mechanistic paradigm.

References

[1] D Hall, J Kardos, H Edskes, JA Carver, Y Goto (2015) A multi-pathway perspective on protein aggregation: Implications for control of the rate and extent of amyloid formation
FEBS letters 589, 672-679
[2] D Hall, H Edskes (2012) Computational modeling of the relationship between amyloid and disease Biophysical reviews 4, 205-222
[3] D Hall, H Edskes (2009) A model of amyloid's role in disease based on fibril fracture
Biophysical chemistry 145, 17-28
[4] D Hall, H Edskes (2004) Silent prions lying in wait: a two-hit model of prion/amyloid formation and infection. Journal of molecular biology 336, 775-786

BIOGRAPHY

2015-present: Associate Professor, Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, JAPAN
2014-present: Senior Research Fellow, Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University
2013-2014: Assistant Professor, IFREC, Osaka University, JAPAN
2008-2013: Assistant Professor, Institute of Basic Medical Research, Tsukuba University, JAPAN
2007-2008: Research Fellow, Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, JAPAN
2003-2007: HFSP Research Fellow, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK
2000-2003: John E Fogarty Fellow, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, USA
1996-2000: PhD. University of Queensland, Department of Biochemistry. AUSTRALIA

Research Fields and Interests:
I study disease and disease associated chemistry through the lens of physical chemistry – a field I call physical biochemistry. I use a range of physical techniques including mathematical modelling and wet experimental biochemistry to study three main topics,

(i.) Amyloid formation and its relationship to disease.
(ii.) Adsorption of virus to the epithelial cell membrane.
(iii.) Cell signaling via diffusion in the cell cytosol and membrane.

Selected Publications:
• D Hall, S Li, K Yamashita, R Azuma, JA Carver, DM Standley (2015) RNA–LIM: A novel procedure for analyzing protein/single-stranded RNA propensity data with concomitant estimation of interface structure Analytical biochemistry 472, 52-61.
• D Hall (2012) Semi-automated methods for simulation and measurement of amyloid fiber distributions obtained from transmission electron microscopy experiments
Analytical biochemistry 421 (1), 262-277
• D Hall and H Edskes (2012) Computational modeling of the relationship between amyloid and disease Biophysical reviews 4, 205-222
• D Hall and M Hoshino (2010) Effects of macromolecular crowding on intracellular diffusion from a single particle perspective Biophysical reviews 2, 39-53
• D Hall (2008) Kinetic Models Describing Biomolecular Interactions at Surfaces Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance, Royal Society of Chemistry 81-131.