Heavy mice and light things: using solid-state NMR spectroscopy to understand biological tissues in health and disease Event

At the microscopic level, it provides the scaffold which supports cells but more intriguingly, at the molecular level, it provides the communication system between the cells in the tissue and the signals that drives the individual behaviour of cells. Ultimately, if we can understand how the extracellular matrix molecular structure and dynamics dictates the behaviour of cells, then we can develop ways to treat diseases such as cancer, by doing chemistry in the extracellular matrix to drive the necessary change in cell behaviour.
However, understanding the molecular level properties of the extracellular matrix has been hampered by the lack of methods to study tissues at the atomic scale. In this talk, I will describe the various solid-state NMR spectroscopy approaches my group has taken over the last decade to tackle these complex questions.