Jacobson, Stephen
April 12, 2017
Stephen C. Jacobson
Characterization of Nanoscale Particles with Nanofluidic Devices
Virus assembly is a coordinated process in which typically hundreds of subunits react to form complex, symmetric particles. We use resistive-pulse sensing to characterize the assembly of Hepatitis B Virus core protein dimers into T = 3 and T = 4 icosahedral capsids. This technique counts and sizes intermediates and capsids in real time, with single particle sensitivity, and at biologically relevant concentrations. REU students will learn to fabricate these nanofluidic devices and optimize the nanochannel geometries to detect particles with high signal-to-noise ratios. After device fabrication, REU students will conduct resistive-pulse sensing experiments to sense particles of different sizes, monitor assembly of virus capsids under different reaction conditions, and compare their results with conventional methods. http://www.indiana.edu/~scjweb/