Chemical Engineering Seminar

Abstract: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a rare genetic disorder that appears in about 3,600 newborn boys in the US annually. This progressive degenerative muscle disease leads to disability and death as the afflicted individual matures to adult age. My colleagues and I have discovered that a bottlebrush (BB) version of poly(ethylene oxide-b-propylene oxide) block copolymer, a variation on commercial compounds known as Poloxamers, has a remarkable effect on genetically modified DMD mice. These results will be discussed in the context of recent studies dealing with the interaction of Poloxamer triblock copolymers with model lipid bilayers and comparison with the new BB diblock compound.

Bio: Frank S. Bates is a Regents Professor and a member of the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department at the University of Minnesota. He received a B.S. in Mathematics from SUNY Albany and an M.S. and Sc.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT. Between 1982 and 1989, Bates was a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, then joined the University of Minnesota, where he served as department Head from 1999 to 2014. He was named a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in 1988, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 1996, and a Regents Professor in 2007. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors.