Ciência sem Fronteiras (Science Without Borders)
DCU PhD Project Template:
**Please use one form per project**
Please complete & submit to graduate.research@dcu.ie by Friday 13th July
PI name & contact details:
School:
Professor Tia Keyes, School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin
City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9.
Email: tia.keyes@dcu.ie
Tel 00353 1 7008185
Chemical Sciences
Has project been agreed with head (or
nominee) of proposed registration school?
Yes
Research Centre / group affiliation:
National Biophotonics and Imaging Platform & National
Centre for Sensor Research
http://www.nbipireland.ie/
Research group / centre website:
PI website / link to CV:
http://www.dcu.ie/info/staff_member.php?id_no=1002
http://www.dcu.ie/chemistry/biographies/tia_keyes.shtml
Brief summary of PI research / research group / centre activity (2 or 3 lines max):
Prof Keyes has runs a mutltidisciplinary research team focussed on three key areas: , fluorescent
probes for environmental sensing inside living cells, bioinsipired nanoscale materials and tissues
and supramolecular interfacial films for solar energy,. shas published approx. 140 papers in
international peer reviewed journals in these and related areas.
Tia is the DCU director of the National Biophotonics and Imaging Platform.
Title & brief description of PhD project (suitable for publication on web):
Fluorescent Probes for Detection of brain plaque proteins, prevalent in Alzheimer’s and
Creutfeld Jacob disease.
Amyloid plaques within brain tissue are a feature common to many neurological diseases includeing
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler syndrome (GSS), Parkinsons disease,
Alzheimers and in scrapie, a prion disease of animals, amyloid plaques have been shown to be
composed of prion proteins (PrP), which form filaments. Diagnosis of disease and its progression
more fundamentally understanding of the role of such amyloid plaques in neurological disease
requires development of effective probes which are specifically targeted to the amyloidal
structures. The successful application of fluorescence techniques to studies of oligomerization and
aggregation of proteins implicated in such plaques, such as α-synuclein, in living cells has been an
elusive although imaging of amyloid in fixed (dead) cells is straightforward it is not useful for
watching dynamic processes of protein aggregation. This project will focus on the synthesis of
environmentally sensitive luminescent (e.g. fluorescent) metal complexes and conjugation of these
probes to peptides which are capable of transferring across the living cell membrane and through
peptide targeting to bind to amyloid plaque and associated proteins. The target materials are
weakly or non luminescent until they are bound to the plaque wherein they light up and can be
selectively imaged.
The programme is multidisciplinary and the student will contribute to chemical synthesis, protein
conjugation, Protein/fluorophore binding studies (spectroscopy and photophysics) and fluorescent
cell imaging. The resulting materials will be studied in protein prion and cell models using state of
the art confocal laser scanning and lifetime imaging as well as Raman imaging.
Sample References:
o
Ruthenium Polypyridyl Peptide Conjugates: Membrane Permeable Probes for Cellular
Imaging. Y. Pellegrin, Ute Neugebauer, Marc Devocelle, Robert J. Forster, William Signac,
Niamh Moran, and Tia E. Keyes. 2008. Chemical Communications, , pp5307
o
Novel molecular dyes for the labelling of synthetic peptides, Devocelle M, Blackmore L,
Cosgrave L, Forster R, Keyes T, J. Peptide Sci, 2010, 16, 183
o
Ruthenium Polypyridyl Peptide Conjugates: Membrane Permeable Probes for Cellular
Imaging, U. Neugeburger, Y. Pellegrin, N. Moran, W. Signac, RJ Forster, T E. Keyes, Chem
Comm. 2008, 5307.
o
Near IR Emitting BODIPY Fluorophores with Mega-Stokes Shifts, Aaron Martin ,a Conor
Longb, Robert J. Forster,a,b Tia E. Keyes Chem Comm, 2012, In Print,
DOI:10.1039/C2CC31150J
Unique selling points of PhD project in DCU:
DCU projects should offer something that’s not available in Brazil – specific equipment, multi-disciplinarity,
aspects of structured programme, links with industry, placements, links with other research groups etc.
Students will gain experience on state of the art instrumentation, and methods within a
multidisciplinary team, the project will particularly focus on synthesis, microscopy/imaging ,
fluorescence and cell culture.
This work will be carried out in collaboration with colleagues in Royal College of Surgeons in
Ireland.
Name & contact details for project queries, if different from PI named above:
Please indicate the graduates of which disciplines that should apply:
Chemistry, Materials Science or Biochemistry
Ciência sem Fronteiras / Science Without Borders Priority Area:
Please indicate the specific programme priority area under which the proposed PhD project fits- choose only
one (tick box):
Engineering and other technological areas
Pure and Natural Sciences (e.g. mathematics, physics, chemistry)
x
Health and Biomedical Sciences
x
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
Aerospace
Pharmaceuticals
Oil, Gas and Coal
Renewable Energy
Minerals
Biotechnology
Nanotechnology and New Materials
Technology of prevention and remediation of natural disasters
Biodiversity and Bioprospection
Marine Sciences
Creative Industry
New technologies in constructive engineering
Please complete