Academic Report：Biosensing with Novel Fluorescent Agents   

Speaker：Professor Kwok-yin Wong 

Time: Monday 10:00 a.m. 8th December  

Place: A718,SINANO  

Abstract:Enzymes bearing environment-sensitive fluorophores can function as biosensors by giving a change in fluorescent signal upon binding to the enzyme substrates. The success of such biosensors (sensitivity, selectivity, etc.) depends on a number of parameters including the location of fluorophore, nature of fluorophore label, and mutation of amino acid residues on the enzymes. When the environment-sensitive fluorophore is placed at an appropriate location on the enzyme, the change in fluorescent signal can be correlated to the binding of substrate to the enzyme to give the enzyme-substrate (ES) complex, and the subsequent release of substrate from the enzyme active site. In this presentation, an account on how fluorophore-labelled enzyme can report the enzyme activity will be given. In addition, fluorescent probes that bind specifically to histidine-rich proteins and nucleic acid G-quadruplex structure will be discussed.   

Biography: Professor Kwok-yin Wong is the Patrick S.C. Poon Professor in Applied Chemistry and Chair Professor of Chemical Technology in the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has been the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University since 2008. He is a chemist with research interests in biosensors, electrochemistry and antibiotic drug design. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree (1981) and Doctor of Philosophy (1986) in chemistry from The University of Hong Kong (with Prof. Chi-Ming Che), and did his postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology (with Prof. Fred C. Anson) in USA in 1986-87.

Professor Wong has published over 170 papers in SCI international refereed journals, including JACS, Angewandte Chemie and Advanced Materials. He is the recipient of the second class award in natural science by the Ministry of Education in 2013. He is also the co-inventor of five international patents.