University of Malaya Ph.D student ( Mr. Vijayan ManickamAchari) under the supervision of Professor Dr. Rauzah Hashim from the Chemistry Department, University of Malaya was recently awarded the “Best poster” for his work entitled “Hydration and Thermal effects on Structure and Dynamic Properties of Monoalkylated and Guerbet Branched-Chain β-D-Maltosides: An Atomistic Simulation Study”. This poster was presented at the 8th ACCMS conference at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan from June 16-18, 2015.
Mr Vijayan’s work on glycolipids is of great potential for pharmaceutical applications such as targeted drug delivery, gene therapy and membrane solubilization. Glycolipids are biodegradable, biocompatible surfactants which are present widely in nature and can be produced cheaply from renewable resources. The results from the computational study are important in understanding biological cell membrane functions such as cell recognition, cell fusion and programed cell death.