Ohio University’s Chemistry and Biochemistry Colloquium Series presents Dr. Normand Voyer on “Development of bio-inspired functional nanostructures: Artificial ion channels and the like” on Monday, Nov. 9, at 4:10 p.m. in Clippinger Laboratories 194.
Dr. Normand Voyer
Voyer is Professor of Chemistry at Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
Abstract: Through evolution, Nature has created numerous amazing functional supramolecular devices of nanometer dimensions. Such nanodevices can perform sophisticated processes with an efficiency that is unrivaled by synthetic/artificial systems to date. This lecture will present our bio-inspired approach towards supramolecular nanostrutures designed to be used as therapeutic agents or as nanocomponents for single molecule diagnostics. Our approach is based on exploiting helical peptide nanostructures serving as molecular scaffolds for the construction of supramolecular devices that mimick the ion transport properties of ion channel proteins [1]. As such, the nanostructures can incorporate bilayer membranes and allow the fast translocation of ions [2]. Details will be presented on the synthesis, the characterization and the potential applications of the peptide nanostructures in different areas.
[1] F. Otis, M. Auger, N. Voyer, Acc. Chem. Res. 2013, 46, 2934-2943
[2] J. D. Savoie, F. Otis, J. Bürck, A. Ulrich, N. Voyer, Biopolym. Pept. Sci., 2015, 104, 427-433
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