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Can you hear how tightly an anticancer drug fits with its target biomolecule? Is it possible to control the movement of a nanotrain along nanoscale railways? Listening in on biomolecular processes and constructing nanomachines outside of living cells sounds like science fiction but is in fact reality. Join Jude and Adam as they delve into the fascinating realm of biomolecules.
Sonicules: Designing drugs with sound
Jude Brereton
(Lecturer, Department of Electronics, University of York)
For a new drug to work its shape must be carefully engineered to fit perfectly with its target. Currently chemists do this with the aid of visual software - and the process is imperfect, slow and laborious. Our research shows that using sound to complement the visual display may improve and speed up complex drug design processes. Come and hear about the scientific and musical inspiration behind Sonicules, try our drug-design computer game, and learn how spatial sound is helping chemical engineers to design drugs more easily, efficiently and effectively.
Bio-nanotechnology: Borrowing parts from nature
Adam Wollman
(Post-doctoral fellow, University of York)
Nature is great at building complex things. Plants and animals grow from tiny single cells containing all the information to build an organism. In contrast, humans need vast factories and machines to build anything as complex. But to build like nature requires knowledge of biological processes which aren’t fully understood. I'll discuss my work trying to understand these processes using advanced microscopes to see single molecules at work inside living cells, and my efforts to build like nature by taking these molecules outside cells to assemble a nanoscale railway.