Andra Dédinaité, Associate Professor
PhD, MSc
Contact Information
Research
At the core of my scientific interests are association phenomena in bulk and at interfaces and normal/friction forces generated by association structures. In particular, I study mixtures of cationic polyelectrolytes and oppositely charged surfactants and oppositely charged polyelectrolyte complex layers.
A distinct line of my research turns into exploring polymers that Nature employs for creating a diversity of “soft” responsive structures. These studies are intended to include, e.g. mucins and novel covalently coupled combinations of natural building blocks, such as chitosan with grafted oligosaccharide side-chains. These are combined in order to build surface layers with desired static and dynamic properties - hydrophobicity, porosity, reactivity, swelling, charging, switching polarity and changing friction due to stimuli such as ionic strength, pH, temperature, and humidity.
Taken into account the variety offered by the carbohydrate and protein chemistry, the choice of potential natural building blocks is uncountable. Though intensely studied in life science, the possibilities of using these ingredients to building functional surface layers are far from being explored to their full potential and is one of the paths that I go.
Key techniques: Atomic Force Microscopy, including Force Spectroscopy and Friction, Surface Forces Apparatus, Dual Polarization Interferometry, Ellipsometry Quartz Crystal Microbalance.
Selection of Recent Publications
Naderi, A., Claesson, P.M., Bergström, M., Dedinaite, A. “Trapped Non-Equilibrium States in Aqueous Solutions of Oppositely Charged Polyelectrolytes and Surfactants: Effects of Mixing Protocol and Salt Concentration”, Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 2005, 253, 83-93.
Claesson, P.M., Poptoshev, E., Blomberg, E., Dedinaite, A. “Polyelectrolyte-mediated surface interactions” Advances of Colloid Interface Science, 2005, 114-115, 173-187.
Orlando J. Rojas, Andra Dedinaite, Medwick V. Byrd, Martin A. Hubbe and Per M. Claesson “On the Origins of Adhesion in Papermaking Systems” 13th Fundamental Research Symposium, Cambridge, September 2005.
Natalija Gorochovceva, Ali Naderi, Andra Dedinaite, Ricardas Makuska “Chitosan-N-poly(ethylene glycol) Brush Copolymers: Synthesis and Adsorption on Silica Surfaces” European Polymer Journal, 2005, 41, 2653-2662.
Dedinaite, A. Lundin, M., Auleta, T. and Macakova, L. “Mucin - Chitosan Complexes at the Solid-Liquid Interface: Multilayer Formation and Stability in Surfactant Solutions”, Langmuir. 2005, 21, 9502-9509
Dedinaite,A. Joseph,I., Gorochovceva.N., Makuska,R., Claesson, P.M. “Interfacial Properties of Chitosan – PEO Graft Oligomers: Surface Competition with Unmodified Chitosan Oligomers”, Progr. Colloid Polym. Sci. 2006, 132, 124-130.
Luis Bastardo, Joseph Iruthayaraj, Maria Lundin, Andra Dedinaite, Ausvydas Vareikis, Ricardas Makuska2, Albert van der Wal, Istvan Furo, Vasil M. Garamus and Per M. Claesson “Soluble complexes in aqueous mixtures of low charge density comb polyelectrolytes and oppositely charged surfactants probed by scattering and NMR”, J. Colloid Interface Sci., 2007, 312, 21-33.
Ye Zhou, Bo Lidberg, Natalija Gorochovceva, Ricardas Makuska, Andra Dedinaite and Per M. Claesson “Chitosan-N-Poly(ethylene oxide) Brush Polymers for Reduced Non-specific Protein Adsorption” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, J. Colloid Interface Sci., 2007, 305, 62-71.
Maria Lundin, Lubica Macakova, Andra Dedinaite, Per M. Claesson “Interactions between Chitosan and SDS at a Low Charged Silica Substrate Compared to Interactions in the Bulk. The Effect of Ionic Strength”, Langmuir, 2008, 24, 3814-3827.
Adhikari, A., Claesson, P.M., Pan, J., Leygraf, C., Dedinaite, A., and Blomberg, E. “Electrochemical behavior and anticorrosion properties of modified polyanilin dispersed in PVAc polymer coating on carbon steel”, Electrochimica Acta submitted
Dedinaite, A., Bastardo, L., Oliveira, C.L.P., Skov Pedersen, J., Claesson, P.M., Vareikis, A., Makuska, R. “Solution Properties of Bottle-Brush Polyelectrolytes”, Proceedings of the Baltic Polymer Symposium 2007, Druskininkai, Lithuania, Ed. R.Makuska and T.Romaskevic
Torbjörn Pettersson, Zsombor Feldötö, Per M. Claesson, and Andra Dedinaite “The Effect of Salt Concentation and Cation Valency on Interactions between Mucin-Coated Hydrophobic Surfaces”, Prog. Colloid Polym. Sci., DOI 10.1007/2882_2008_75).'
Feldötö, Z., Pettersson, T., Dedinaite, A. “Mucin-Electrolyte Interactions at the Solid/Liquid Interface Probed by QCM-D”, Langmuir, 2008, 24, 3348-3357.
Torbjörn Pettersson and Andra Dedinaite “Normal and friction forces between mucin and mucin-chitosan layers in absence and presence of SDS”, J.Colloid Interface Sci. (2008), doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2008.04.055