SciLifeLab The Svedberg seminar series

Monday, February 2

Aleksandra Radenovic

Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology, Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

Aleksandra Radenovic received her master’s degree in physics from the University of Zagreb in 1999 before joining Professor Giovanni Dietler’s Laboratory of Physics of Living Matter in 2000 at University of Lausanne. There she earned her Doctor of Sciences degree in 2003. In 2003 she was also awarded a research scholarship for young researchers from the Swiss Foundation for Scientific Research which allowed her to spend 3 years as postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley (2004‐2007). Before joining EPFL as Assistant Professor in 2008 she spent 6 months at NIH and Janelia Farm. In 2010 she received the ERC starting grant. Her group is interested in using novel nanomaterials and single molecule experimental techniques to study fundamental questions in molecular and cell biology.

MoS2 nanopores- are 3 atoms better than one?

Atomically thin nanopore membranes are considered to be a promising approach to achieve single base resolution with the ultimate aim of rapid and cheap DNA sequencing. Recently, we made advances in using nanopore platform for its integration with 2 D materials such as graphene or MoS2. Translocation of various types of DNA exhibits a signal amplitude that is five times higher than in the case of solid-state Si3N4 membranes and a SNR of more than 10. These features are highly desirable for event detection and we take advantage of them by showing the electric-field induced unfolding of a 48 kbp long DNA molecule within the nanopore which manifests itself in the quantization of the current drop. Unlike graphene nanopores, no special surface treatment is needed to avoid strong interaction between DNA and the surface. Our results imply that MoS2 nanopore membranes can compete with graphene nanopore membranes in terms of spatial resolution and possibly better performance for transverse detection. Finally I will introduce our approach to slow down DNA translocations through MoS2 nanopore.

More information about Aleksandra Radenovics research

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Host: Ralph Scheicher