Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Physicist Applies Nanotechnology to Detect Protein-Protein Interactions

Monday, December 10, 2018, By Rob Enslin
Share
College of Arts and SciencesfacultyresearchSTEM

A physicist in the College of Arts and Sciences hopes to improve cancer detection with a new and novel class of nanomaterials.

head shot

Liviu Movileanu

Liviu Movileanu, professor of physics, creates tiny sensors that detect, characterize and analyze protein-protein interactions (PPIs) in blood serum. Information from PPIs could be a boon to the biomedical industry, as researchers seek to nullify proteins that allow cancer cells to grow and spread.

Movileanu’s findings are the subject of a paper in Nature Biotechnology (Springer Nature, 2018), co-authored by Ph.D. student Avinash Kumar Thakur. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has supported their work with a four-year, $1.17 million grant award.

“Detailed knowledge of the human genome has opened up a new frontier for the identification of many functional proteins involved in brief physical associations with other proteins,” Movileanu says. “Major perturbations in the strength of these PPIs lead to disease conditions. Because of the transient nature of these interactions, new methods are needed to assess them.”

Enter Movileanu’s lab, which designs, creates and optimizes a unique class of biophysical tools called nanobiosensors. These highly sensitive, pore-based tools detect mechanistic processes, such as PPIs, at the single-molecule level.

Even though PPIs occur everywhere in the human body, they are hard to detect with existing methods because they (i.e., the PPIs affecting cell signaling and cancer development) last about a millisecond.

Movileanu’s response has been to create a hole in the cell membrane—an aperture known as a nanopore—through which he shoots an electric current. When proteins go near or through the nanopore, the intensity of the current changes. The changes enable him to determine each protein’s properties and ultimately its identity.

The concept is not new—it was first articulated in the 1980s—but only recently have scientists begun fabricating and characterizing nanobiosensors on a large scale to detect DNA, sugars, explosives, toxins and other nanoscale materials.

Movileanu hopes his real-time techniques will detect cancers before they spread.

One type of cancer in which he is particularly interested is lymphocytic leukemia, a common and aggressive disease that starts in the bone marrow and spills into the blood. Because leukemia cells do not mature and die properly, they often spiral out of control.

“Leukemia cells build up in the bone marrow and crowd out normal, healthy cells,” Movileanu explains. “Unlike other cancers, which usually start in the breasts, colon or lungs [and spread to the bone marrow], lymphocytic leukemia originates in the lymph nodes, hence the name.”

Over the summer, he received another four-year grant from NIH—his third million-dollar one to date—to build nanobiosensors. This project involves colleagues at SUNY Upstate Medical University, led by Michael Cosgrove G’93, G’98, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

graphic of proteins

A digital illustration of a cancer cell undergoing mitosis (Christoph Burgstedt/Shutterstock.com)

Movileanu’s projects are part of a burgeoning field called interactomics, which uses experimental and computational techniques to study interactions—and the consequences of those interactions—between proteins.

“The data gleaned from a single protein sample is immense,” says Movileanu, a member of the Biophysics and Biomaterials research group in the Department of Physics. “Our nanostructures allow us to observe biochemical events in a sensitive, specific and quantitative manner. Afterward, we can make a solid assessment about a single protein sample.”

As for the future, Movileanu wants to study PPIs in more complex biological samples, such as cell lysates (fluid containing “crumbled” cells) and tissue biopsies.

“If we know how individual parts of a cell function, we can figure out why a cell deviates from normal functionality toward a tumor-like state,” says Movileanu, who earned a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of Bucharest in Romania. “Our little sensors may do big things for biomarker screening, protein profiling and the large-scale study of proteins [known as proteomics].”

In June, Movileanu presented at the first Northeast Nanomaterials Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS)’s Northern New York Section, held in Lake Placid. He has since reprised his ACS talk at Brown and Clarkson universities and at the 15th annual International Conference on Flow Dynamics in Sendai, Japan.

  • Author

Rob Enslin

  • Recent
  • Most Read
  • Related
  • Statement from Syracuse University Regarding Closure of Crouse-Hinds Hall on Thursday, Dec. 5
    Thursday, December 5, 2019, By News Staff
  • 2020 SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows Request for Proposals Now Open
    Thursday, December 5, 2019, By Kerrie Marshall
  • From ‘Justice for Jenny’ to Justice for All: Burton Blatt Institute Redefines ‘Supported Decision Making’
    Thursday, December 5, 2019, By News Staff
  • Registration Open for WorkLife Webinar for Faculty and Staff
    Tuesday, December 3, 2019, By News Staff
  • Center for Learning and Student Success Offering Additional Academic Support Programming During This Final Week of Classes
    Tuesday, December 3, 2019, By News Staff
  • SU in the News: Tuesday, July 3
    Tuesday, July 3, 2012, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University Permanently Expels Theta Tau Chapter
    Saturday, April 21, 2018, By News Staff
  • Seven Syracuse Alumni Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 Lists
    Thursday, January 5, 2017, By John Boccacino
  • Syracuse University Announces $118 Million Investment to Create a New Stadium Experience
    Monday, May 14, 2018, By News Staff
  • 100 Years after WWI: The Lasting Impacts of the Great War
    Monday, July 28, 2014, By Kathleen Haley
  • Brooks Gump Awarded NIH Grant to Study Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Children
    Wednesday, February 20, 2013, By Michele Barrett
  • The Democratic Party Identity Crisis
    Thursday, November 9, 2017, By Sawyer Kamman
  • The White House is Making a Push for Space Exploration
    Thursday, October 5, 2017, By Sawyer Kamman
  • Syracuse Scholar: Natalie Rebeyev ’15
    Wednesday, February 25, 2015, By Sarah Scalese
  • Campbell to discuss ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics’ Nov. 1 as part of new campus series
    Wednesday, October 27, 2010, By News Staff

More In STEM

2020 SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows Request for Proposals Now Open

SyracuseCoE is accepting applications for the 2020 Faculty Fellows program, which provides up to $20,000 in seed funding for research in SyracuseCoE’s core technical areas of clean and renewable energy, indoor environmental quality and water resources. Select previous projects are highlighted…

ECS Faculty Awarded $1.4 Million from Energy Department to Advance Building Energy Modeling

Two faculty members in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) will extend their collaborations to develop an innovative system that improves energy modeling of existing buildings using “aerial intelligence” acquired by drones. Senem Velipasalar, associate professor of electrical…

Biology Graduate Student Receives National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

Julia Zeh is a Ph.D. student in the Bioacoustics and Behavioral Ecology Lab under biology Associate Professor Susan Parks, working on a project that ultimately will contribute to the conservation of endangered whales. Her interest in ecology and animal behavior…

Forensics and National Security Sciences Institute Develops DNA Tool

DNA is everywhere—not just in bodily fluids, such as blood or saliva, but also in traces left by the touch of a finger. If more than one person has been sitting at the same table, for example, traces of each…

Information Technology Services Takes Center Stage at NetApp Insight Conference

Thousands of information technology professionals gathered at the NetApp Insight Conference in Las Vegas last week to hear experts from such leading organizations as Centura Health, SAP, DreamWorks—and Syracuse University. Eric Sedore, associate chief information officer with Information Technology Services…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2019 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.