[Postdocs-visitors] Reminder: Physics and Astronomy Colloquium today

["Grant, Gayle" <Gayle Grant tufts edu>]

Reminder:  Colloquium today


3:00 pm
Friday, April 8, 2011
Nelson Auditorium, Anderson Hall
Medford Campus
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
Physics and Astronomy Colloquium

"Single-molecule Science with a Nanopore: Inspiration from Nature"

Liviu Movileanu
Syracuse University

A nanopore may act as an amazingly versatile single-molecule probe that 
can be employed to reveal several important features of nucleic acids and 
proteins. The underlying principle of nanopore probe techniques is simple: 
the application of a voltage bias across an electrically insulated 
membrane enables the measurement of a tiny picoamp-scale transmembrane 
current through a single hole of nanometer size, called a nanopore. Each 
molecule, translocating through the nanopore, produces a distinctive 
current blockade, the nature of which depends on its biophysical 
properties as well as the molecule-nanopore interaction. 
Such an approach proves to be quite powerful, because single small 
molecules and biopolymers are examined at very high spatial and temporal 
resolutions. I will discuss our recent work that provided a mechanistic 
understanding of the forces that drive protein translocation through a 
nanopore. These measurements facilitate the detection and exploration of 
the conformational fluctuations of single molecules and the energetic 
requirements for their transition from one state to another. 
I will also describe our recent strategies for engineering new functional 
nanopores, in organic and silicon-based materials, with properties that 
are not encountered in nature. From a practical point of view, this 
methodology shows promise for the integration of engineered nanopores into 
nanofluidic devices, which would provide a new generation of research 
tools in nanomedicine and high-throughput devices for molecular biomedical 
diagnosis.  

Refreshments served at 2:30 in Robinson Hall, Room 251