Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology

Bionanoscience


THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

INSTITUTE OF BIONANOSCIENCES (IoB)

 

PhD opportunities available

BACKGROUND:

What is Bionanoscience?

There is a great deal of world-wide interest in the potential of devices and structures at the sub-micron level. We already live in a world dominated by small-scale devices, namely computer chips. Microelectronics are by definition composed of devices that are about a millionth of a metre (a micron) long. Nanotechnology refers to devices that have the dimensions on the same scale as molecules themselves, i.e. in the nanometre range, a thousand times smaller than our current “high-tech” devices. The advantages of working with matter on this tiny scale are potentially immense. A nano version of a micro-device would require a least a million times less material to make, with resultant savings in weight, waste, cost of production, power consumption etc. Leading thinkers in this field, such as Richard Feynman and Eric Drexler, have argued that an ability to engineer matter at this molecular level will lead to a complete transformation of all of human life with profound implications in wealth generation, health care and sustainable development. These arguments have been accepted by governments and research funding bodies worldwide leading to a massive investment in an area seen as vital in the 21 st Century.

Both Feynman and Drexler argued that their concepts of “nanotechnology” were bound to work because Biology already has nano-scale machines making our cells live and replicate etc. It seems only sensible therefore to begin developments in this area by “borrowing” working components from Biology and adapting them to carry out novel bespoke tasks to order. Biological starting materials have a number of major advantages over their inorganic equivalents because they are the defined products of their gene sequences. Manipulation of those gene sequences allows facile programmability of the products obtained. Furthermore evolution has provided us with a multitude of components with very precise molecular recognition properties, allowing us to control molecular contacts at the nanometre scale. Finally, many of the components of biological systems have the ability to self-assembly to create macromolecular assemblages that have properties not present in the separate components. Mimicking such abilities will be a key goal of the IoB and will rely on the unique feature of biological macromolecules, namely their innate programmability via their gene sequences.

Leeds is uniquely well placed to capitalise on this idea because it hosts one of the country's leading inter-disciplinary centres dedicated to the study and understanding of biomolecular structures and their functions, namely the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology. The University of Leeds has invested millions into pump-priming two further inter-disciplinary institutes that will operate under the Astbury umbrella, these are the Institute of Molecular Biophysics, Co-directors Sheena Radford and Alastair Smith, and the IoB, Director Peter Stockley, who is also currently Director of the Astbury Centre. The new funding has created new research-based academic and infra-structure support posts, new and newly refurbished laboratory space, state-of-the-art equipment and a large number of PhD studentship opportunities. To date, over 30 academic staff across four University Faculties have expressed an interest in participating in the research programmes of the IoB.

Richard Feynman: There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom

K.Eric Drexler: Engines of Creation

GOALS OF THE IoB:

IoB will build on the international reputation of its participating members in their core disciplines to generate a step-change in research output of world-class research that can clearly be badged as “Bio-Nanotechnology/science”. By thus establishing an international profile in this area IoB will be the conduit through which Leeds staff can compete effectively for the research funds that are being pro-actively targeted to this area by external funders. IoB builds on the widely recognised strengths of basic biological structure-function studies already in place on the campus. It also extends the growing links between the biological and physical sciences that has attracted such attention from the Research Councils and puts us in a very strong position with respect to peer group Universities. IoB is purely research-led but active research programmes in these areas will underpin both graduate student training and undergraduate degree programmes. IoB will have positive benefits on all aspects of academic recruitment to the University.

SPECIFIC PROJECTS:

IoB activities initially are centred on four broad project areas that encompass many key aspects of biological systems and the ways in which they could be manipulated to perform novel functions. These are: The Molecular Railroad; Smart Surfaces; The Nanosubmarine and Gensys, an intuitive system for interrogating molecular systems at the nanometre scale (see below).

The construction of a Molecular Railroad . – Essentially this will correspond to a version of Drexler's Universal Assembler. Biomolecular components ( motors , e.g. actin; DNA-binding proteins –Trinick/Knight/Ransom/Stockley/Stonehouse/Thomas/Phillips) will be engineered to move along spatially-defined tracks (e.g. peptides;DNAs;myosinTrinick/Knight/Ransom/Radford/Stockley/ Stonehouse/Thomas/Phillips/Fishwick) composed of other biomolecules, whilst towing cargoes (e.g. enzymes; VLPs; vesicles – Baldwin/McPherson/Smith/Radford/Stockley/Phillips/Hiscox/ Whitehouse/Rowlands) consisting of synthetic compounds/substrates. These will arrive at molecular stations (e.g. evolved protein or nucleic acid catalysts – Berry/Nelson/McPherson/Stockley) comprising active sites for novel chemical transformation of the substrates. Track switching systems ( points, e.g. either molecular or external switching systems – Marrows/Smith/Waigh/Thomas/Trinick/Knight) will allow decisions to be taken about which chemistry gets performed to order.

An essential requirement of the railroad will be the need to immobilise its track and other components on a defined and highly regular substrate (Busby/Evans/Davies/Wälti/Radford/Fishwick/Iles/Gilmartin & Gidelavitz). Such substrates have many other potential uses and thus activities in this area are grouped under a separate project area known as Smart Surfaces .

A second element in the programme is the Nanosubmarine . These will be based around virus-like particles or other macromolecular assemblies derivatised with metal ions, metal salt crystals or other biomolecules, creating particles with novel electrical, magnetic, optical or molecular recognition properties (Stockley / Phillips / Rowlands / Hiscox / Whitehouse / Stonehouse / Ransom / Evans / Cywinski / Kilcoyne). These particles may have uses in targeted drug delivery and/or structure determination. In addition such complexes will be used to template the construction of novel materials, such as novel band-gap structures that might have potential applications in electronic devices.

Underpinning these developments will be systems to simulate the nanoscale environment and allow manual manipulation of species at this level. This GenSys: Generic Nanoscale Engineering System (Smith/Holden/Thompson) will integrate atomic force microscopy and virtual reality devices to allow operators to manipulate molecular species in an intuitive fashion.

 

JOB OPPORTUNITIES:

The IoB is currently recruiting PhD students and infrastructure support staff. Further details can be found on the Astbury website or by contacting Donna Fletcher.


This page is maintained by Nic Stonehouse
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Last modified on 4-10-04