Restaurant Reservation: Electrical Tools

Monday, 8 October 2012

Electrical Tools

The laboratory's research is bi-directional. One direction is to use bio-templated systems to realize one-dimensional conducting nanowires and nanodevices for scientific investigation of electrical charge transport in these systems for nanoelectronics and for nanotechnology applications. Examples of the bio-templated systems are dsDNA and its synthetic derivatives and the SP1 protein hybridized with various nanoparticles to form memory units and protein-particles conducting chains. Within this framework, electrical charge transport in dsDNA was measured, the energy level spectrum of dsDNA was measured, the polarizability of DNA derivatives was shown, and more. Charging and logic operations in the hybrid SP1-nanoparticle systems were also demonstrated. In the other direction, the lab's physical tools and approach are used to investigate biological problems such as HIV. A critical stage in the lifecycle of the HIV virus, the integration of "viral DNA" into "cellular DNA", was investigated at the single molecule level in vitro using atomic force microscopy imaging. Research is conducted in close collaboration with several groups in complementary fields.