Carbon and DNA Nanostructures: from Controlled Assembly to Functional Devices

The controlled organization of individual molecules and nanostructures with nanoscale accuracy is key for the investigation of single-molecule events in biological and chemical assays, as well as for the fabrication of the next generation optoelectronic devices. In this regard, we developed different platforms based on carbon and DNA nanostructures as building blocks/scaffolds that allow for single-molecule and nanoscale studies to be performed in a variety of research fields.

I will first present a universal approach for the generation of multifunctional nanomaterials via the in-solution assembly of classes of molecular materials (organic, inorganic, and biological with promising attributes) to carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Through this approach, we assembled and investigated: molecular transport junctions,[1] metal nanowire devices using CNTs as vector templates,[2] static and dynamic organic-inorganic heterostructures consisting of Quantum Dot-CNT hybrids,[3,4] stimuli-responsive DNA-CNT junctions,[5] protein-CNT nanohybrids[6] and multiplexed biosensing devices based on aptamer- and protein-CNT heterostructures.[7,8]

Finally, I will show how a facile strategy combining the programming ability of DNA as a scaffolding material with a one-step lithographic process can be employed to fabricate biomimetic nanoarrays that permit the multivalent investigation of ligand−receptor molecule interactions in cancer cell spreading, with nanoscale spatial resolution and single-molecule control.[9]

[1] Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2016, 138, 2905-2908

[2] Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2019, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201902857

[3] Small, 2017, 13, 1603042

[4] Advanced Science, 2018, 5, 1800596

[5] Chemistry of Materials, 2019, 31, 1537-1542

[6] Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2017, 139, 17834-17840

[7] Nano Letters, 2018, 18, 4130-4135

[8] In preparation

[9]ACS Nano, 2019, 13, 728-736

Biography 

Matteo Palma is a Reader in Nanoscience (Associate Professor) in the Department of Chemistry, at the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London (U.K). He carried out his doctoral studies at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (France), investigating the nanoscale structural and electronic properties of supramolecular assemblies for organic electronics via scanning probe techniques: his doctoral work has been awarded the “Young scientist award” by the European Materials Research Society in 2006. He then worked as a postdoctoral scientist at Columbia University (New York, U.S.A.) focusing on the use of surface chemistry and nanofabrication strategies to control (bio)molecular self-assembly at the nanometer scale. Since 2013 he is a Principal Investigator at Queen Mary University of London where he leads a research group focusing on the assembly of functional nanostructures with single-molecule control (for molecular electronics and biological investigations down to the single-molecule level).