Eva Bertosin: A DNA rotary mechanism with coordinated mobility control

The molpigs Podcast

Join the molpigs team for a conversation with Eva Bertosin about her work on building nanoscale rotors during her PhD with Hendrik Dietz. This is a "poster podcast," so we will occasionally be referencing figures in the associated poster which can be found at the link below. The DNA origami rotor was inspired by the rotational mechanism of ATP synthase, which Eva and her colleagues had to simplify and abstract to create a functional DNA structure which could demonstrate rotational diffusion. She explains how they used cryoEM to optimize design, and how new tools for analyzing cryo data made the ambitious data analysis involved in this process possible. And the promises of using molecular simulation to help inform design. We round out the conversation with discussion of how she got into DNA design, visions for the future, and advice to future students about tackling huge projects.

Eva is a postdoc in the Cees Dekker's research group at the Technical University of Delft. Her work is focussed on building artificial systems that are inspired by natural components of the cell. In particular, she is working on biomimetic systems to study transport of molecules through the nuclear pore complex. She obtained her PhD in 2021 working in Hendrik Dietz' group at the Technical University of Munich. During this time, she built a novel rotating nanostructure made of DNA origami components with interlocked and coupled motion. This work was chosen as one of the finalists of the CeNS Nano Innovation Award 2021. She got her MSc degree at the Technical University of Munich and her BSc in physics studying at Padua University and at the Georg-August-University Göttingen.

Poster: https://podcast.molpi.gs/media/bertosin-e-db84e966a4c6b894/poster.pdf
Video: https://podcast.molpi.gs/media/bertosin-e-db84e966a4c6b894/brownian.mp4

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Find more information at the episode page here:
https://podcast.molpi.gs/media/bertosin-e-db84e966a4c6b894/