DEVELOPING NANOPORES AS NANOSENSORS

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. A nano-meter size pore, a so-called nanopore, can be manufactured in thin inorganic membranes. The most important application for nanopores is DNA sequencing: under the influence of an electric field, DNA translocates through the nanopore, producing electrical signals characteristic of the sequence and length of the DNA strand. Current synthetic nanopores can not reach single-base resolution yet; however, they are among the most promising technologies for cheap DNA sequencing. The Resource has been working in close collaboration with electrical engineers (Gregory Timp and Jean-Pierre Leburton) to understand the physics of synthetic nanopores and improve their resolution. Atomic-scale modeling was carried out in three directions: (i) genotyping with synthetic nanopore; (ii) stretching/ unzipping DNA hairpins with a synthetic nanopore; (iii) sensing DNA sequence with a nanopore capacitor; (iv) modeling of ionic current through silica nanopores (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/nanopore/).