Abstract:

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A key challenge in nanotechnology is to design and fabricate nanostructures and nanodevices. Such systems can serve as platforms for basic science research (structural biology, molecular biology, for instance) at nanoscale, and for practical applications. Bottom-up structural DNA nanotechnology has attracted significant attentions due to its programmability and its precise control of matter at nanoscale.

I am excited to have this opportunity to share some of our most recent research results (ke-lab.gatech.edu). The seminar will open with a brief introduction of structural DNA nanotechnology, followed by discussing our recent progress in making massive/complex DNA nanostructures and dynamic DNA devices. Particularly, I will discuss how we can construct fully addressable GDa nanostructures from modular DNA components called “DNA bricks” (Science 2012, Nature 2017), and a new type of DNA structure transformation driven by information propagation between the structural units (Science 2017).

DNA nanostructures has also shown increasing capabilities for basic science research, and for practical applications. I will discuss our works on single-molecule biosensors, drug delivery, and fabrication of functional nanoscale materials by using DNA self-assembly.

 
 

Biography:  

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Yonggang Ke joined the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in 2014. He is an associate member of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics research program at Winship Cancer Insitute of Emory University. He also holds memberships in the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering, the Materials Research Society and the Biomedical Engineering Society.

Dr. Ke received his PhD from Arizona State University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, affiliated with the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Ke's research is highly interdisciplinary combining chemistry, biology, physics, material science, and engineering. The overall mission of his research is to use interdisciplinary research tools to program nucleic-acid-based "beautiful structures and smart devices" at nanoscale, and use them for scientific exploration and technological applications. Specifically, his team focuses on (1) developing new DNA self-assembly paradigms for constructing DNA nanostructures with greater structural complexity, and with controllable sizes and shapes; (2) developing new imaging or drug delivery systems based on DNA nanostructuresl; (3) exploring design of novel DNA-based nanodevices for understanding basic biological questions at molecular level; (4) developing DNA-templated protein devices for constructing artificial bio-reactors.

For cancer-related research/application, Dr. Ke focuses on using DNA/RNA nanostructures as drug delivery vehicles. He is also interested in using DNA/RNA nanostructures to study cancer cell biology at molecular level.
 

Biomedical Engineering Department at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology

yonggang.ke@emory.edu