MSc Public Lecture - Navid Afrasiabian (Applied Math)

Please contact Audrey Kager for Zoom link.

Title: The Journey of a Single Polymer Chain To A Nanopore

Abstract: One of the fundamental processes involved in the survival and functioning of cells is the ability of the cell to exchange matter with its environment. This exchange consists of the motion of different molecules into or out of the cell through very narrow pores, namely nanopores. An important group of molecules taking part in this process are polymers, long chain-like molecules which look like spaghetti noodles. In the present work, we investigate the effect of hydrodynamic flow on polymer capture, the process of finding the entrance of a nanopore, using multi-scale molecular dynamics-lattice-Boltzmann simulations. We observed that the non-uniform fluid flow approaching the nanopore not only guides the polymer chain to the nanopore but also stretches it which can result in the unravelling of folded conformations (hairpins) and promoting single-file capture.