Events Calendar

Lyman L. Handy Colloquium Series

Speaker: Professor Jinsang Kim,

Talk Title: Functional Conjugated Polymers for Biosensors and Optoelectronic Applications

Abstract: Conjugated polymers (CPs) have become emerging materials for many useful applications due to the tunability of their properties by variation of chemical structure. Particularly the biosensor application of CPs has gain much interest recently because CP-based sensors can provide large signal amplification. The concept, design principles, and applications of conjugated polymers for self-signal amplifying biosensors and sensor arrays will be discussed. We have developed conjugated polymer-based biosensors to detect clinically important biological materials such as DNA and proteins. Our signal amplifying sensors are designed to achieve high sensitivity by means of the energy harvesting property and highly emissive property of conjugated polymers. Receptors are rationally designed to provide specificity toward a target analyte to realize high selectivity. Signal amplifying DNA microarrays, PDA liposome arrays for selective potassium detection and mercury detection, prostate specific antigen sensors, bioconjugated emissive organic nanoparticles for immunofluorescence labeling, and warfare agent detection sensors will be discussed. Optoelectronic application is another promising direction of our conjugated polymer research. Flexible conjugated polymer photovoltaic cells having controlled nanostructures, pure organic phosphorescence emitters, and negative index materials will be also discussed in the second part of the talk.

Biography: Jinsang Kim is an associate professor having a joint appointment in Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He holds a M.S (1993) and a B.S. (1991) from Seoul National University, Korea, both in Fiber and Polymer Science. He earned his Ph.D. in 2001 in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, where he studied the design, synthesis, and assembly of conjugated sensory polymers and energy transport properties in the controlled structures. He is also an expert in genetically engineered protein research. His postdoctoral work in this area at Caltech involved the expression of artificial genes to determine the extent to which artificial genetic information can be used to encode supramolecular assembly in macromolecular systems.
He has won several prestigious awards including 2007 NSF CAREER Award, 2006 Holt Award for excellent teaching, 2002 IUPAC Prize for Young Chemist, 2002 ACS ICI Award, and 2000 MRS Graduate Student Gold Award. He was also named one of emerging investigators by the journal of materials chemistry in 2007. His current research interests at the UM are self-signal amplifying molecular biosensors, flexible solar cells, highly emissive organic emitters, and negative index materials. His research has been sponsored by NSF BES, NSF ECS, NSF DMR, AFOSR, ARO, DoE, ACS, KIMM, KRF, NVRQS, and Center for Chemical Genomics.


Host: Professor Wang

More Info: http://chems.usc.edu/academics/10-11/l-12-09-10.htm

Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Petra Pearce

Event Link: http://chems.usc.edu/academics/10-11/l-12-09-10.htm