Journal of Chromatography & Separation Techniques
Open Access

Eva J Helmerhorst

Biography

Eva J Helmerhorst has recived PhD from Netherlands and MS from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Netherlands, and BS from Hogeschool van Amsterdam The Netherlands. Currently she is working as Associate Professor at Boston University

Research Interest

Saliva is well known to play a major role in maintaining oral health conditions by interfering with the adverse affects of oral pathogens. My research interests focus on the structure-function relationships of salivary proteins. Most important in this host protection by saliva is the capacity of several salivary proteins to protect oral hard and soft tissues. More recent studies with pure salivary proteins isolated from sterile glandular secretions have shown that functional domains representing short segments of the native proteins also exhibit antimicrobial and mineral homeostasis characteristics. Once these native proteins derived from the glandular secretions enter the oral cavity they are exposed to a host of enzymes including proteases. My projects are specifically geared towards an understanding of the proteolytic fragmentation of these glandular proteins using proteomics approaches for their structural characterization and specific bioassays to evaluate the effects of proteolysis on the functional spectrum of these salivary macromolecules. .