Saturday, May 14, 2016

Nanoplatelets Templated and Stabilized by Phage

Nanoplatelets Templated and Stabilized by Phage



I already wrote four posts, but I realized I did not write about the funnest part in the course– the research proposal presentation. This one of main reasons to petition this course instead of 7.02 for 10B. A proposal from scratch with no particular prompt is a skill that is essential to success in science and engineering. Teamwork and team presenting is also important for success in any career one may pursue. I really wanted to rap/spoken word the entire presentation, but I really did not want to fail this course lol. So, I decided to do it here. I'll try to attach the ppt here, but its 30MB from all the videos, figures, and backup slides. I hope this makes it more clear to those who attended the talk, and present it to those who didn't! Well, here it goes.



Perovskites were discovered in the 1970s,
But listen carefully please,
These chemical chamellions can seize
More than half the elements eas-
ily, into its lattices, more importantly,
Hybrid organohalid perovskites recently
Have been reported to unbelievably,
Outperform current options and can be made easily,
A droplet of precursor to toluene and instantly,
They crystallize and emit at any frequency,
Two-dimensional thickness control with quantum confining, you see
And constituent control with easy chemistry,
Giving the tunability to cover the entire visible spectrum conviently,
White light for solid-state lighting, and remarkable tunability
For optolectrics lasers, LED, vis-a-vis,
The bulk crystal counterpart getting better for photovoltaics increasingly!

Enough perovskite detail, we are almost going off-topic here,
This can solve a deeply ingrained problem, it is clear
That current lighting technologies are a serious fear
Either resource-intensive or inefficient low tier,
But these 2D nanoplatelets can dissapear
From the moisture in your breath!
Heat, irradiation, bulk crystallization can also cause their death,

So we thought of using biology for the sake,
Of stabilizing these materials to make,
A solution for commercial uptake,
Engineer bateriophage so they don't break
In the solvents we need, then put in a plaque
Forming assay to make sure they can still infect,
Then we use a library to detect,
Phage that can collect,
The materials that we suspect,
To stabilize the nanoplatelets from we expect,
We biominerize to assemble and grow crystals then inspect,
X-rays that deflect to reflect,
The structures we select,

Then we assemble a scaffold of phage,
That bind polymer and make a cage,
For the nanoplatelets to age slower,
With electron microscopy we can gauge,
Whether we got networks and the crystals that look like a page,
If this can be accomplished, then we can reach a stage,
Where nanoplatelets templated and stabilized by phage,
Can be used in all the applications that we want to engage!


-Saleem Aldajani




No comments:

Post a Comment