Home

Areas of Interest: Single-molecule and Membrane Biophysics; Electrophysiology and Membrane Transport; Protein Engineering and Folding; Chemical and Synthetic Biology; Bionanotechnology and Nanomedicine; Biosensors and Functional Biomaterials

Liviu Movileanu’s laboratory investigates a range of subjects from fundamental single-molecule and membrane biophysics to more applicative nanobiotechnology. His research team uses a broad spectrum of experimental techniques, from single-channel electrical recordings on planar lipid bilayers and proteoliposomes to the nanofabrication of silicon-based materials and protein engineering. The primary direction of this group is to design nanopore-based molecular probes for nucleic acids, proteins and their complexes with the interacting ligands.

This research group employs various biological and synthetic nanopores to detect, explore and characterize biopolymers at high temporal and spatial resolution. The electrical measurements through a single nanopore illuminate the stochastic dynamics of individual molecules, such as their conformational fluctuations and interactions with other molecules, as well as the energetic requirements for their transition from one state to another. This information is difficult to obtain by traditional spectroscopic and calorimetric measurements that probe ensemble properties of molecules in solution.

In the long term, the group’s efforts will target the adaptation of these approaches to a microfabricated chip platform, providing a new generation of research tools in nanomedicine for examining the details of complex biochemical events in a quantitative manner. Moreover, these studies will represent a major step in designing nanopore-based biosensors and high-throughput devices for biomedical molecular diagnosis and environmental monitoring.

Students with background in experimental physics, chemistry or biomedical sciences are very welcome to contribute to our research endeavors.

PROGRAM AFFILIATIONS

The BioInspired Institute at Syracuse
The SUNY Upstate Cancer Research Institute (CRI)

For any query regarding this web page, please send an e-mail request to lmovilea@syr.edu