AME Seminar

Speaker: Jasna Brujic, NYU

Talk Title: Colloidal protein analogs

Abstract: Our group is inspired by Nature’s strategy of folding biopolymers into specific protein and RNA structures to build a toy model of polymeric chains of droplets, i.e. “colloidomers”, that are designed via DNA interactions to fold into well-defined architectures. Indeed, simple alternating chains (up to 14 droplets long) with only two droplet flavors (ABABAB…) are sufficient to uniquely encode a dozen “foldamers”, constituting 1% of all possible rigid structures in 2D. Subsequently, these 2D foldamers can self-assemble into larger nets that, upon density-matching, are able to further fold into unique 3D geometries, for example viral capsids. These hierarchical protocols circumvent the vast phase space of the nominal folding landscape, in which a random cluster of 12 particles has tens of thousands or rigid folds to choose from. Once the colloidal protein analog is formed, it can then be further programmed by the polymerase-exonuclease-nickase (PEN) toolbox of enzymes that interact with droplet-droplet DNA bonds, to produce highly non-linear dynamical systems. These "mayonnaise robots” promise to offer a bright and functional future on the colloidal length scale.  

Biography:
Jasna Brujic is a Professor of Physics at New York University. She is one of the core faculty in the Center for Soft Matter Research. Brujic is an experimental physicist, who received her Ph.D. for work on the statistical mechanics of granular matter at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, UK. She then conducted post-doctoral research at Columbia University in the area of single molecule proteins. Since 2007, Brujic has led a research group at the interface between soft matter physics and biophysics. The group uses biomimetic emulsion systems to study jammed matter, cellular organization in tissues in 3D, protein-protein adhesion, and programmable self-assembly of materials with custom designs.

https://wp.nyu.edu/brujiclab/

Host: AME Department

More Info: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/

Webcast: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95892885119?pwd=QXZOZUhrcTJRYk5qZzZwVThrTytVZz09

Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 252

WebCast Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/95892885119?pwd=QXZOZUhrcTJRYk5qZzZwVThrTytVZz09

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Tessa Yao

Event Link: https://ame.usc.edu/seminars/