Design,Development and Testing of Nb-Ti Superconducting Magnet & Creation of Liquid Helium Test Facility

Research in the area of advanced materials for various applications is the demand of time. Discovery of nano technology, high Tc superconductivity and multi functional materials are just few of them. For proper understanding of the underlying physics, Low temperature investigations on these materials are very much needed. If magnetic field is added to low temperature,sometimes new insights are witnessed e.g., superconductivity, quantum Hall effect etc. Intense efforts are going on around the world to make simple and inexpensive superconducting magnet systems for performing variable temperature experiments on the above materials under high magnetic fields. Keeping in view of these facts, a lab scale mobile superconducting magnet system is designed and developed in house using Nb- Ti wire (0.43 mm nominal diameter, Cu:SC Ratio of 2:1) and tested for production of 6 Tesla field and repeated quenching of the coil. The thesis describes the step-by-step procedure involved in winding and testing of the superconducting magnet. Further, a simple commercially available Liquid Helium transport dewar is suitably modified for magnet insertion with necessary instrumentation for liquid helium transfer port, hall field-probe, LHe level indicator, temperature and field sensors, power supply and vapor cooled current leads etc. The magnet is tested in a commercially available cryostat, available at VECC Kolkata. In a parallel effort, the present thesis also describes the setting up of Liquid Helium production and magnet testing facility along with necessary vacuum and electrical instrumentation. The out come of the present thesis is expected to accelerate the growth of Cryogenic/Vacuum/Applied Superconductivity research at NIT Rourkela

SCREENING AND MOLECULAR DOCKING STUDIES OF CURCUMIN AND ITS DERIVATIVES AS INHIBITORS OF AMYLOID- β PROTEIN - A KEY PROTEIN IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

 Objective: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. This disease is characterized by progressive cognitive deteriorationalong with declining activities of the day to day and behavioral changes. One of the important pathogenesis in AD is the chronic inflammation ofneuron. Studies have demonstrated the associated inflammatory changes such as astrocytosis, microgliosis, and the presence of pro-inflammatorycomponents that accompany the deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide. In Alzheimer patients, a chronic inflammation occurs because of activatedmacrophages and an increased amount of cell signaling proteins. Curcuma longa of Zingiberaceae family is cultivated spice in India and other Asiancountries. Turmeric has a high content of curcuminoids and is recognized for its broad spectrum of biological activities. Molecular docking studieswere performed by selecting various curcuminoids as Aβ inhibitors.Methods: Docking studies help to understand the binding interactions of the protein with the ligands. Alzheimer's Aβ precursor(PDB ID: 1AAP) wasselected as the crucial protein involved in AD and curcuminoids were selected as ligands. Molecular properties and quantitative structure-activityrelationship (QSAR) model were calculated using Med Chem Designer and Build QSAR. Docking studies were performed using Autodock 4.0.Results: Docking results indicate that curcuminoids can be considered as inhibitors of AAP as they interact with the active site region.Conclusion: Docking analysis of auto dock binding energies and binding interactions of curcumin and its derivatives indicates that curcumin,curcumin bis acetate, bisdemethoxy curcumin, [18F] fluoropropyl substituted curcumin and tetrahydrocurcumin can be considered as probableinhibitors of AAP.Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, Curcuma longa, Curcuminoids, Docking, Quantitative structure-activity relationship, Amyloid protein