The cees dekker Diaries
The cees dekker Diaries
Blog Article
Nanotechnology offers a range of alternatives to contribute to biology. Right here I will current illustrations wherever nanofabrication – a chance to make confined buildings with dimensions at will – is utilised to look at the biophysics of solitary molecules and cells. I will current some examples from our lab:
Reconstitution of ultrawide DNA origami pores in liposomes for transmembrane transport of macromolecules
Back in 1991, Sumio Iijima from the NEC Corporation had claimed the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. Band structure calculations recommended that these nanotubes could exhibit metallic band conduction. This would be a significant benefit more than the conducting polymers we had explored, which were being, in actual fact, disordered semiconductors offering basically variable-range hopping conductivity.
A rhythmically pulsing leaf-spring DNA-origami nanoengine that drives a passive follower Mathias Centola
That may be a aspiration of mine and we established to work that has a delightful dose of naivety. This is something which will probably produce spectacular ends in the lengthier expression, but that doesn't make a difference. You shouldn't only want to operate within the issues of tomorrow, but in addition on the queries from the working day after tomorrow.’
Inside the a long time subsequent these discoveries, my research pursuits shifted to biophysics and nanobiology, And that i turned much less involved in the event of nanotube electronics. The main focus of numerous researchers in the sphere also shifted to graphene (the place, funnily ample, the initial graphene ribbons had been referred to as ‘nanotubes which are cut open up alongside their length’) after the invention of the two-dimensional material in 2004.
We use nanofabricated microfluidic buildings to sample spatial boundaries for germs and biomimetic vesicles with reconstituted protein networks and this assess the elemental job of spatial confinement within the molecular and mobile level. Our projects include the subsequent:
Dynamic ParB–DNA interactions initiate and retain a partition condensate for bacterial chromosome segregation
In 1993, to be a young and keen associate professor at Delft University of Technological know-how, I'd originally concentrated the study initiatives of my team on measuring the electrical conductance of only one conducting-polymer molecule. Inside two yrs, we had developed a tool wherein just one wire of a phthalocyaninepolysiloxane polymer was linked involving two intently spaced metal nanoelectrodes.
Dekker started out his study on one carbon nanotubes in 1993 when he build a brand new line of research to review electrical transport via one natural and organic molecules amongst nanoelectrodes. In 1996 a breakthrough was realized with carbon nanotubes. This was attained in a collaboration While using the group of Nobel laureate Richard Smalley. STM and nanolithography techniques were used to reveal that these nanotubes are quantum wires at The only-molecule amount, with outstanding Actual physical Homes.
Skip to key information Thank you for visiting mother nature.com. You happen to be employing a browser Model with restricted support for CSS. To acquire the top expertise, we suggest you utilize a more up-to-date browser (or switch off compatibility mode in World-wide-web Explorer).
Mother nature Physics many thanks the anonymous reviewers for his or her contribution on the peer evaluate of the operate.
For instance, we look at the nucleopore sophisticated, a gateway in between the mobile nucleus as well as the cytoplasm. This is a really sophisticated technique and thus hard to study inside of a cell, so we use biomimetics. We reconstruct holes and afterwards insert unique aspects of the nucleopore complicated to check transport through it at The one-molecule amount.’
Good-point out nanopores have tested to become a shockingly multipurpose probe for one-molecule Examination of DNA. I'll describe cees dekker a number of our latest conclusions – exclusively DNA knots – in addition to our efforts to grow the abilities of stable-state nanopores even even further, within the way of solitary-protein detection, graphene nanopores, plasmonic nanopores, and DNA origami nanopores.