Dear Colleagues and Students,
You are cordially invited to UNAM Nanocolloquium seminars focusing on advancements in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The seminars bring us the most recent developments in these exciting fields.
The second talk of this fall term will be presented by Prof. David Cahen*
Title: Bio-molecular Electronics Electron Transport across Peptides and Proteins
Date: November 4, 2016 (Friday)
Time: 15:40
Place: UNAM Conference Room
ABSTRACT – Molecular electronics has as one of its goals to incorporate functional molecules into electrical circuits, to provide characteristics beyond those of existing and predicted semiconductor-based electronics. Going from simple molecules to functional ones is, though, a huge step. This is where proteins come in and we move to bio-molecular electronics.
We and others have found that electron transport (ETp), i.e., electronic conduction, across proteins in a solid state–like configuration is surprisingly efficient, comparable to or, if length-normalized, at times even more efficient than via completely conjugated molecules.1 Working with modified proteins and homo-peptides we find that both cofactors and secondary structure matter for ETp efficiency.
While ET and ETp are related, nature regulates ET via redox chemistry, where control over the process is achieved at a price in free energy, while for ETp a redox process is not necessary. This allows studying ETp via non-redox proteins, such as the rhodopsins and albumins. This finding points to peptides as an efficient transport medium and I will cover their electronic transport behaviour, in addition to that of proteins.
* Weizmann Institute of Science, Department of Materials and Interfaces
All interested are cordially invited!
http://unam.bilkent.edu.tr/