Amyloid growth: combining experiment and kinetic theory

The conversion of proteins from their soluble forms into fibrillar amyloid nanostructures is a general type of behaviour encountered for many different proteins in the context of disease as well as for the generation of a select class of functional materials in nature. This talk focuses on the problem of defining the rates of the individual molecular level processes involved in the overall conversion reaction. A master equation approach is discussed\footnote{Cohen et al, J Chem Phys 2011, 135, 065106} \footnote{Knowles et al, Science, 2009, 326, 1533-1537} and used in combination with kinetic measurements to yield mechanistic insights into the amyloid growth phenomenon.