The Chemistry Seminar Program brings visitors from across Canada and beyond to present seminars in their area of expertise.  The seminars are open to everyone, including undergrad students.

Monday October 17
11:30 am
David Turpin Building A110

Juewen Liu
University of Waterloo
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~liujw/index.html

“DNA adsorption on gold nanoparticles, graphene oxide and metal oxides”

Understanding and control of DNA adsorption on surfaces and nanoparticles is critical for biosensor development. This seminar covers detailed studies on three types of important nanomaterials. DNA adsorbs on gold nanoparticles via very strong base coordination. Such strong adsorption led to kinetic controlled processes. DNA as an interesting block copolymer with many negative charges has interesting self-assembly properties as a function of ionic strength, pH and temperature, all of which have been used to promote DNA adsorption to gold. Such understanding has led to not only better conjugation methods but also better biosensors. DNA adsorbed on graphene oxide via hydrogen bonding along with pi-pi stacking, while they adsorb to metal oxides via phosphate backbone binding along with some base interactions. Some literature reported sensors are reviewed and some sensing mechanisms were found to be incorrect due to a lack of attention to fundamental DNA adsorption mechanisms.