Hebah Fatafta

Postdoc

Curriculum Vitae

since 07/2018
PhD student at the Computational Biochemistry Group at IBI-7: Structural Biochemistry, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany.
The PhD is funded by the Palestinian German Science Bridge (PGSB).

09/2009 – 06/2013
M.Sc. in Physics, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine. The master thesis was supervised by Dr.Wael Karain

09/2005 – 06/2009
B.Sc. in Physics, Birzeit University.

Professional Career

09/2014 – 06/2018
Physics Teacher, Department of Physics, Birzeit University, Palestine.

09/2009 – 06/2013
Teaching Assistant, Department of Physics , Birzeit University, Palestine.

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Awards

  • Fellowship of Palestinian German Science Bridge (PGSB) 2018-2021
  • Presentation excellence award, Forschungszentrum Jülich, December 2020. A prize
    for ‘Best Presentation by a PhD Fellow’ in the Palestinian German Science Bridge (PGSB)
    Fellows Competition. [Link]

Research interests

  • Protein structure and function
  • Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of protein-membrane interactions
  • Amyloid aggregation and amyloid associated disease

PhD Project

In this project we use all-atom MD simulation to simulate the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide membrane interaction in environments that consider certain aspects of the conditions found in the brain. This include the simulation of (i) a complex lipid bilayer consisting of six lipid components mimicking that of the neuronal membrane, (ii) the oxidation effect, (iii) the crowding effect and (iv) the lipid interaction partner effect.

Publications

Structural dissection of the first events following membrane binding of the iselt amyloid polypeptide
Khemtemourian L., Fatafta H, Davion B, Lecomte S, Castano S,  Strodel B
bioRxiv (2021) [link]

Disorder-to-order transition of the amyloid-β peptide upon lipid binding
H. Fatafta, B. Kav, B.F. Bundschuh, J. Loschwitz, B. Strodel
Biophys. Chem., accepted (2021) [link]

Amyloid-β peptide dimers undergo a random coil to β-sheet transition in the aqueous phase but not at the neuronal membrane.
Fatafta H, Khaled M, Sayyed-Ahmad A, Strodel B
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Sep [link]

Molecular simulations of IDPs: From ensemble generation to IDP interactions leading to disorder-to-order transitions
Fatafta H, Samantray S, Sayyed-Ahmad A, Coskuner-Weber O, Strodel B. 
Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science, Academic Press. 2021. [link]

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