FDA CDRH Summer Research in X-ray Scattering Studies of Proteins in Alzheimer’s Disease

The two neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are the extracellular aggregation of amyloid-beta peptides in the brain to form amyloid plaques and the aggregation of tau proteins to form neurofibrillary tangles in neurons. The fellow will be part of a project that will characterize the structures of amyloid-beta fibrils and tau tangles in AD using small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) technique. Towards this effort, the fellow will design protein aggregation protocols mimicking various aggregation states of amyloid-beta and tau in AD and perform structure characterization of those aggregates at different length scales.

Participant Learning Objectives: 
• The participant will gain hands-on experience to perform experimental measurements to characterize protein aggregates using SAXS.
• The participant will gain experience with protein modifications to form protein aggregates associated with Alzheimer’s disease and characterize them at different length scales.