‘The next is nanopores, which can be our oldest line of investigation and which has now resulted in DNA sequencers determined by nanopores. We pull specific DNA strands by way of a nanopore and can then study off the nucleotide sequence. Pretty recently, we even managed to browse out only one protein for The 1st time employing This method. But this line of study is not only about creating tools, but will also about authentic biological concerns.
You regularly get entangled in discussions about science and religion. You've got also written various publications on the topic. Don’t you are convinced sooner or later We're going to know almost everything Which God’s part will be in excess of?
[Laughs] ‘It was certainly an excellent danger! At the time, I was perfectly knowledgeable that it could go Erroneous Which I could grow to be a lot less profitable, but I just dismissed that. Curiosity has usually been my strongest driving force. And fortunately all of it worked out.’
Given that 2000, Dekker has shifted the primary emphasis of his do the job in the direction of biophysics the place he experiments the Qualities of solitary biomolecules and cells utilizing the applications of nanotechnology. This transformation of discipline was pushed by his fascination with the outstanding working of biological molecular constructions, and by the lengthy-phrase standpoint that many intriguing discoveries might be predicted With this industry.[five] Current strains of research in his biophysics group are within the regions of:[6]
This yielded a breakthrough. Inside of only some months, we have been able to evaluate transportation by way of an individual one-walled carbon nanotube. Depending on low-temperature experiments by an excellent PhD university student in my group, Sander Tans (now a valued colleague ceesdekker.net and professor at Delft College of Technologies by having an active investigation lab at AMOLF in Amsterdam), we confirmed that carbon nanotubes had been legitimate quantum wires with extremely very long (micrometres) Digital coherence lengths — confirming theoretical predictions of metallic behaviour.
Our analysis ranges from your biophysics of DNA to synthetic cells and past. Make sure you have a look below at the spectrum of our current projects.
We use nanofabricated microfluidic constructions to pattern spatial boundaries for germs and biomimetic vesicles with reconstituted protein networks and this evaluate the elemental purpose of spatial confinement for the molecular and mobile degree. Our tasks include things like the next:
Dynamic ParB–DNA interactions initiate and maintain a partition condensate for bacterial chromosome segregation
‘Yes, I recognize people today had been astonished at the time. At the end of the nineties, After i was in my forties, I was Professor of Molecular Electronics and I have to confess that it experienced turn into a bit bored, I didn’t study much any more. The sector went extra into the appliance facet, how you could integrate nanotubes into electronic circuits.
But carbon nanotubes have remained a investigate subject matter of appreciable fascination to a lot of. Without a doubt, the outlook on making use of carbon nanotubes to construct functional units, in places like radio-frequency electronics, digital electronics and versatile electronics, stays vibrant.
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Cees Dekker is Distinguished University Professor at TU Delft. Educated as being a physicist, he pioneered nanotechnology with numerous discoveries on carbon nanotubes within the 1990s. Because 2000, he moved to single-molecule biophysics and nanobiology. His present-day investigate concentrates on (i) nanopores for protein sequencing; (ii) chromosome framework, specifically SMC motor protein; and (iii) creating a living artificial mobile from lifeless molecules. Dekker is undoubtedly an elected member on the KNAW and fellow on the APS as well as the IOP.
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It was an extremely attention-grabbing time, throughout which I gained loads of assistance from Delft University of Know-how, where I was a professor at time, And that i started off quite a few collaborations with molecular biologists. That assisted me discover a good deal.’