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LUNG SURFACTANT
The Lung Surfactant is a thin layer of liquid found in the alveoli
made up of lipids and proteins. It is necessary in the lung because
it reduces the surface tension thus reducing the energy required
to breath. The lung surfactant is developed at the later stages
of pregnancy and premature babies are often born without it causing
respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) a potentially fatal disease.
The current treatment for RDS is to instill babies with purified
lung surfactant from other mammals. An improvement to the current
therapy used today would be to come up with a synthetically made
lung surfactant. Our project is to characterize MiniB, a synthetic
version of a crucial lung surfactant protein, SP-B using Brewster
Angle Microscopy, Wilhelmy surface balance, and surface pressure
measurement. The data that have been collected suggest that the
protein MiniB helps to raise the surface pressure (i.e. reduce surface
tension) and prevents any loss of material at the interface. The
results will then be used to determine what concentrations of the
protein will work the best and with what lipids, eventually making
a synthetic lung surfactant.
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final presentation as PDF
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