Date of Defense

Spring 4-12-2011

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Ekkehard Sin, Chemistry

Second Advisor

Gus Guzinski, Chemistry

Third Advisor

Ramakrishna Guda, Chemistry

Abstract

New synthesis routes for nanoparticle-based material in which there is controlled, spatial ordering of the nanoparticle (NP) building blocks is of tremendous interest. Various types of ligands have been used to produce nanoparticles ranging from simple organic molecules to antibody-antigen, DNA oligonucleotides, and streptavidin-biotin to name a few. In most cases for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles, thiol based ligands have been favored invoking the soft metal–soft ligand interaction. Other than sulfur based ligands we have also used ligands bearing N and O as donor atoms. Monolayer protected gold nanoparticles are of biological importance as they can be used as vehicles for drug delivery to cancer cells. They are a challenge to synthesize as the amino acid nitrogen is not as attracted to the Au metal as its sulfur counterpart. We have synthesized and characterized water soluble lysine, cysteine and dimercaptosuccinic acid protected gold nanoparticles using UV-vis, TEM and NMR spectroscopy. Further investigation is underway to measure the cytotoxicity of these nanoparticles towards cancer cells.

Comments

Full text of this thesis not available per author.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Campus Only

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