Aleksei Aksimentiev will be speaking at the Biological Physics CPLC Seminar - Friday, February 8th, 2019

Transport of molecules through nanoscale pores is a process fundamental to the biology of all living organisms and a key element of many technological processes. Driven by diffusion, electrophoresis, or direct mechanical pulling, the transport can be highly selective and is regulated through a variety of mechanisms, including steric exclusion, electrostatic trapping and dehydration. In this colloquium, I will review our discovery of new mechanisms that can govern transport of biomolecules to and through nanoscale pores. I will describe how the physical insights uncovered through computer simulations can be applied to block nanoscale transport in the absence of physical gates, to deliver biomolecules for nanopore sensing and to kill cancer cells