Professor Helen Hansma

Phone: 805-893 3881, Fax: 805-893 8315

E-mail: hhansma@physics.ucsb.edu

Atomic force microscopy of biomaterials.

Professor Helen Hansma came to UCSB in 1972 and to the Physics Department in 1988. She has a B.A. in Chemistry from Earlham College, M.A. in Biochemistry from UC Berkeley, and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from UCSB. She has worked in many research areas ranging from the chemistry of zinc-azine coordination compounds to bile-acid turnover in cholesterol-fed guinea pigs. The diversity of her research areas has served her well in her present research on atomic force microcsopy (AFM) of biomaterials. She started working on biological applications for the atomic force microscope (AFM) in collaboration with Paul Hansma when the AFM was quite new and methods had not yet been developed for successful imaging of biomaterials. She has been involved with AFM of teflon films and of biomaterials, including lipid films, DNA, DNA-protein interactions, laminin and other macromolecules of the basement membrane, and biofilms. She has benefitted from MRL collaborations, such as her collaboration with Joe Zasadzinski on AFM of lipid films and her consulations with Jacob Israelachvili on the cation dependence of DNA binding to mica.

Appointments, Honors, and Awards

• Adjunct Associate Professor and Associate Research Biochemist in the Department of Physics
• Lecturer in the Department of Physics and the College of Creative Studies
• NSF Committe of Visitors review panel for the Division of Biological Infrastructure Instrument Related Activities, Washington, D.C., 1998
• NASA review panel for the Dewar Project for protein crystal growth in space, Huntsville, AL, 1998

Some specific research projects and references

• Kasas, S., N.H. Thomson, B.L. Smith, H.G. Hansma, X. Zhu, M. Guthold, C. Bustamante, E.T. Kool, M. Kashlev, and P.K. Hansma, "E. coli RNA polymerase activity observed using atomic force microscopy", Biochemistry, 36, 461 (1997)
• Laney, D.E., R.A. Garcia, S.M. Parsons, and H.G. Hansma, "Changes in the elastic properties of cholinergic synaptic vesicles as measured by atomic force microscopy", Biophys. J, 72, 806 (1997)
• Chen, C.H., D.O. Clegg, and H.G. Hansma, "Structures and dynamic motion of laminin-1 as observed by atomic force microscopy", Biochem., 37, 8262 (1998)
• Hansma, H.G., and L. Pietrasanta, "Atomic force microscopy and other scanning probe microscopies", Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, 2, 579 (1998)