Collaborative Research: Understanding Thermal-Noise-Based Mechanisms for Intracellular Motion, with Application to Engineered Systems

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The emerging ability to engineer the simultaneous directed motion of large numbers of small particles, from micrometer size down to large molecules, will have tremendous impact in diverse areas of medicine, electronics and bio-materials. Such directed motion is an integral part of normal intracellular function, where motor proteins convert ambient electrochemical potentials and random thermal agitation into motion and act as tiny cargo haulers. This project will learn from and build upon these biological mechanisms, to create a framework for facilitating robust and efficient collective motion of large numbers of microscale and submicroscale particles. Innovative instrumentation created for this project will probe forces acting on motor proteins. Realization of engineered motion of microscale particles will lead to new materials for electronics and biomedicine. The new analytical techniques will find use in related studies, such as on the role of cellular transport malfunctions in disease. This project will employ the following two Brownian ratchet based approaches to obtain robust and efficient mechanisms for transporting cargo at the microscale: (i) shape optical fields to accurately realize desired potential energy landscapes that enable Brownian ratchet mechanisms where noise enables useful work, and (ii) understand how biological components such as motor proteins and microtubules employ Brownian ractchets to achieve motion, and use these constructs for moving engineered cargo. Optical ratchet mechanisms will be realized using modern control techniques. For studying bio-protein motion, modern controls and systems tools will be used to obtain probes at least an order of magnitude faster than the present state-of-the-art. New modes of investigating motor proteins using optical traps will include tension and force clamps, which will facilitate unambiguous interpretation of molecular motion. Innovative open- and closed-loop control laws for optical force fields will be derived to realize Brownian ratchet based directed motion.