The Department of Materials Science and Engineering welcomes you to its 2015 Spring Colloquium Series.

Speaker: Peng Yin, Harvard University Location: Tech L361, 4:00pm

"Molecular programming with DNA/RNA"I will discuss my lab's research on engineering digitally programmable DNA/RNA nanostructures and their applications in imaging, sensing, and nanofabrication.

We recently invented a general framework for programming the self-assembly of short synthetic nucleic acid strands into prescribed target shapes or demonstrating their prescribed dynamic behavior. Using short DNA strands, we demonstrated the modular construction of sophisticated nanostructures. Using reconfigurable DNA hairpins, we demonstrated diverse, dynamic behavior.

By interfacing these nucleic acid nanostructures with functional modules, we are introducing digital programmability into diverse applications. (1) Barcoding and imaging life with DNA. Using programmable fluorescent DNA probes, we developed a highly multiplexed (10x), precisely quantitative (>90% precision), and ultra-high resolution (sub-5 nm) optical imaging method. (2) Probing and programming life with DNA/RNA. We constructed unprecedented robust and ultra-specific DNA probes for detecting single base changes in a single-stranded DNA/RNA target. We developed RNA nano-devices as de-novo-designed synthetic gene regulators with unprecedented wide dynamic range and orthogonality, and demonstrated their utility in living cells and on paper-based in vitro systems. (3) DNA-directed nano-foundries. We developed diverse strategies for producing inorganic materials with arbitrarily prescribed 2D (e.g. using graphene, silicon dioxides and 3D shapes (e.g. using silver, gold).

See his lab's work at http://molecular-systems.net.

Biography: Peng Yin is an Associate Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and a Core Faculty Member at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He directs the Molecular Systems Lab at Harvard. His research interests lie at the interface of information science, molecular engineering, and biology. The current focus is to engineer information directed self-assembly of nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) structures and devices, and to exploit such systems to do useful molecular work. Such de novo designed systems are composed of small synthetic DNA/RNA monomers capable of conditional configuration change and can be programmed to self-assemble, move, and compute. They can serve as programmable controllers for the spatial and temporal arrangements of diverse functional molecules (e.g. fluorophores, proteins), with a wide range of applications in nano-fabrication, imaging, sensing, diagnostics, and therapeutics.He is a recipient of a 2010 NIH Director's New Innovator Award, a 2011 NSF CAREER Award, a 2011 DARPA Young Faculty Award, a 2011 ONR Young Investigator Program Award, a 2013 NIH Director's Transformative Research Award, a 2013 NSF Expedition in Computing Award, a 2014 ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, and a 2014 Finalist for Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists.