Seminar of Physics of the Living State

(The Applied Physics Scientific Section)

(*) Summary. Sickle cell anemia is the most common form of a genetic disorder. Polymerization of mutated sickle hemoglobin (HbS) constitutes the basic molecular process in this pathology. In this seminar, I shall present two topics:
  
-    Studies of the HbS polymerization process using proton magnetic resonance, and his applications in the methodology of differentiation of sickle cell patient state and the evaluation of antisickling agents.

-    Studies of the hemoglobin-membrane interaction. Specifically, in this work, we use a model of reconstituted erythrocytes from ghost membranes, whose cytoskeleton proteins had been previously labeled with the 4-maleimido Tempo spin label, and that were subsequently resealed with HbS or HbA solutions. Using EPR spectroscopy, we studied the time dependence of the spectral W/S parameter, indicative of the conformational state of cytoskeleton proteins (mainly spectrin) under spontaneous deoxygenation, with the aim of detecting eventual effects due to HbS polymerization.

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(**) José Ernesto Falcón Dieguez is a researcher of the Centre of Medical Biophysics. At present he is Head of the Biophysics Department. He is also Associate Professor of Chemistry in the University of Orient in Santiago de Cuba. Cuba.

He has developed several scientific activities related to the study of Sickle Cell Anemia. His present research problem concerns the study of the phenomenon of hemoglobin S polymerization and the hemoglobin-membrane interaction by means of magnetic resonance techniques. The main objective is to develop new therapeutic procedures, as well as new contributions to the knowledge of the physiopathology and the molecular biology of this disease.

Falcón Dieguez has participated in national and international events. He has publications in national and international journals. He has received several national prizes for his work. In 2003 he was awarded a Junior Associateship of the ICTP (Physics of the Living State, Biophysics). Currently he is completing his doctoral research in the area of Biophysics.