Our efforts are focused on establishing experimental methods for creating designed nanomaterial systems through self-organization. We integrate nanoparticles, biomolecules and polymers into unified systems to take advantage of their unique properties, and to exploit the emergent phenomena. Using tailored nano-structures, molecular recognitions, and macromolecular plasticity, we investigate how to build designed nanoscale systems with precise architectures, re-configuration properties, and the ability to react and process energy.
Our lab develops platform approaches for digitizing bottom-up nano-fabrication, and enabling dynamic control and animation of material systems. The lab explores applications of novel self-assembled nanomaterials for targeted functions, from optics to nanomedicine, and from catalysis to signal processing.
Research Focus
Programmable Nanoscale Assembly
One of the fundamental problems in bottom-up assembly of nanomaterials is difficulty creating arbitrary designed architectures from functionally relevant nanoscale blocks. This problem limits how we build targeted materials, integrate nanoscale blocks and manufacture nanoscale devices.
Engineered Nanoscale Biomaterials
Novel approaches are required for generating new biologically and chemically active biomaterials. For example, it is advantageous to establish methods for organizing proteins into designed 2D and 3D arrays, which remains a challenge for traditional protein crystallization. The capability to design controllable protein supramolecular structures can allow accumulation of a wealth of information (e.g., structure, genetics, function) onto a single structure, leading to a broad spectrum of application in nanotechnology, biomimetics and nanomedicine.
Self-Assembled Optical Nanomaterials
Architectured nanoparticle systems with light emitting and light absorbing nanoscale components, such as plasmonic nanoparticles and quantum dots, offer novel optical properties due to the collective effects. However, in order to realize tunable optical responses from such hetero-nanoparticle systems, well-defined nano-architectures with targeted nanoparticle arrangements have to be fabricated.
News
2nd year PhD candidates Alexia Yun and Crystal Lee won the Best Poster Award for symposiums at the Fall Materials Research Society (MRS) conference, which is held from November 26 - December 1, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Crystal presented her poster at the symposium "Crystallization and Assembly at Interfaces" (SF02). Alexia presented her poster at the symposium "Emerging Material Platforms and Fundamental Approaches for Plasmonics, Nanophotonics and Metasurfaces" (EL08).
PhD candidates Brian Minevich and Dan Redeker won the Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Aggregation-Based Crystallization Research at the Spring Materials Research Society (MRS) conference held from April 10-14th, 2023 in San Francisco.
Katerina DeOlivares, a 1st year PhD student in the Gang lab, received an award for best poster at the Spring Materials Research Society (MRS) conference held from April 10-14th, 2023 in San Francisco.
Work by Aaron Michelson and Brian Minevich of the Gang Group has recently been published in the journal Science. This work has also been featured in a Columbia Engineering press release. This work was focused on developing three-dimensional visualization capabilities for our nanoscale architectures and superlattices. Click the link below to find out more!
Columbia Engineering Press Release:
https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/oleg-gang-3d-imaging-nanoparticles
Science Article:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0463
A paper from Professor Gang's group is featured on the February 2022 issue of JACS Au. In the paper, an open, three-dimensional (3D) DNA wireframe octahedron is used to create a library of spatially arranged organizations of enzymes. The contribution of enzyme spacing, arrangement, and location on the 3D scaffold to cascade activity is explored. The experiments provide insight into enzyme scaffold design and allow us to determine that enzyme colocalization itself dominates improvements to enzyme activity.
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacsau.1c00387
Work done by Professor Gang's group on the development of DNA-based assembly methods to construct biologically active 2D and 3D protein arrays has been featured by Columbia Engineering, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, in an official press release. This work has potential applications across many fields such as structural biology, biomaterials, nanomedicine, and biocatalysis. Click the link below to learn more:
https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/putting-functional-proteins-in-their-place
3/11/2021 Update: This paper received increased recognition from Materials Today. See the link for more detail:
Materials Today News Release:
https://www.materialstoday.com/nanomaterials/news/dna-assembly-creates-3d-superconductors/
11/25/2020 Update: The recent paper from Professor Gang's group in Nature Communications on 3D superconducting nanostructures has received increased coverage at the Physics World website. See the link for more detail:
PhysicsWorld Coverage:
DNA origami makes 3D superconducting nanostructures – Physics World
A paper from Professor Gang's…
A paper from Professor Gang's group is featured on the cover of the October 14, 2020 issue of JACS. In the paper, a facile approach is reported to engineer distinctive and specifically placed bonds for DNA nanochambers that can carry a nanoscale cargo. Using such DNA nanochambers, a rational assembly of nanoparticles into desired sequence- and chirality-controlled nanopolymers and planar and three-dimensional arrays was achieved.
Read more here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c07263
Nature Materials features a paper from Professor Gang's group on the cover of the journal's July 2020 issue. In this paper, A platform approach based on the DNA programmability was established for creating desired ordered 3D nanomaterials from inorganic nanoparticles, proteins, and enzymes; novel optical and bio-catalytic functions were demonstrated.
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0550-x