National Center for Design of
Biomimetic Nanoconductors

Overview

The theme of our Nanomedicine Development Center is design of biomimetic nanoconductors and devices utilizing nanoconductors. The model theoretical systems are native and mutant biological channels and other ion transport proteins and synthetic channels, and heterogenous membranes containing channels and transporters. The model experimental systems are engineered protein channels and synthetic channels in isolation, and in self-assembled membranes supported on nanoporous silica scaffolds. The ultimate goal is to understand how biomimetic nanoscale design can be utilized in devices to achieve the functions that membrane transport accomplished in biological systems: a) Electrical and electrochemical signaling, b) generation of osmotic pressures and flows, c) generation of electrical power, and d) energy transduction.

Broad Goals:

Our Center's broad goals are:

• To advance theoretical, computational, and experimental methods for understanding and quantitatively characterizing biomembrane and other nanoscale transport processes, through interactive teams doing collaborative macromolecular design and synthesis, computation/theory, and experimental functional characterization.
• To use our knowledge and technical capabilities to design useful biomimetic devices and technologies that utilize membrane and nanopore transport.
  
• To interact synergistically with other workers in the areas of membrane processes, membrane structure, biomolecular design, biomolecular theory and computation, transport processes, and nanoscale device design.
  
• To disseminate enhanced methods and tools for: theory and computation related to transport, experimental characterization of membrane function, theoretical and experimental characterization of nanoscale fluid flow, and nanotransport aspects of device design.

Current Research

Please see the research section for current research plans.

Organizational Principles of Center:

Our core team is supported by the NIH Roadmap grant, but we are not functionally limited by this particular funded project. We welcome collaborations with all workers with relevant technologies and skills, and aligned interests. These collaborations can be in the form of studies conducted with existing resources, or collaborative grant proposals for new projects aligned with the mission of our Center.

For general scientific and technical issues about the Center, please contact the Director, . For other general issues about the Center, please contact the Programs Coordinator, . To find particular scientific expertise and contact information about other Center participants, please go to People.

The National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors is funded by Grant Number PHS 2 PN2 EY016570B from the National Institutes of Health through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research and is based at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Partner institutions include Yale University, University of Southern California, University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Sandia National Laboratories, Argonne National Laboratory, Oxford University, Wabash College, University of California, Davis, nanoHUB at Purdue University, and the University of New Mexico.