We are delighted to inform the Symposium attendees about a special issue on “Protein Misfolding and Amyloid Aggregation” planned to be published in Biophysical Chemistry journal.

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We strongly believe that it is the right time to bring out such an issue to cover recent discoveries in the rapidly growing amyloid related research area. We think that Biophysical Chemistry is an excellent journal for this special issue as the topics to be covered would have a strong focus on various Biophysical interdisciplinary aspects as detailed below; and, of course, the no cost to publish papers in the journal also helps to attract contributors.

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There is considerable current interest in understanding the process of self-assembly of proteins or peptides that result in a plethora of structural intermediates leading to the formation of amyloids.  Increasing number of amyloid related discoveries is reported from various disciplines including basic sciences, bioengineers, and medicine. Most importantly, a number of untreatable and devastating amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer’s, type II diabetes, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases continue to challenge scientists. The underlying mechanisms of pathology in these diverse diseases are all linked by the accumulation of misfolded proteins.  Therefore, a detailed understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms of protein misfolding might facilitate new therapeutic discoveries across a broad family of disorders. Towards this goal, the challenge is to bring together an interdisciplinary collection of chemical, biophysical and biochemical investigations required to link molecular mechanisms with cellular pathways and potential drug development. As a result, recent studies have shown numerous theoretical, computational and experimental developments to better characterize the aggregation process, and chemical approaches to design compounds to potentially treat these diseases.

   

The proposed special issue on “Amyloid Aggregation” will cover a variety of topics including:

• The latest structural and kinetic studies on amyloid proteins.

• Biophysical techniques and biochemical approaches to characterize the structure and oligomerization of amyloid proteins.

• Amyloid self-assembly as a supramolecular chemistry phenomenon

• Novel chemical and biochemical approaches to inhibit and characterize amyloid aggregation.

• Theoretical and molecular dynamic simulation studies providing insights into the misfolding pathways and structure of amyloid proteins.

   

We believe that articles related to these topics are well-suited for publication in Biophysical Chemistry journal.  We would like to dedicate this special issue in the memoriam of Professor Sir Christopher Dobson (University of Cambridge, UK) who made exceptional contributions to this field. 

     

The following is the timeline for the special issue: 

• Manuscript submission from May 01 to June 30, 2020

• Complete the review process by Sep. 30, 2020 

  

Please let us know if you would like to contribute to the special issue. 

 

Sincerely, 

Alex, Birgit and Rams

 

Guest Editors: 

Alexander Buell <alebu@dtu.dk>

Birgit Strodel <b.strodel@fz-juelich.de>

Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy <ramamoor@umich.edu>