Where: Bldg 20, Auditorium
Description
A keynote lecture by Hanadi Sleiman, Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair in DNA Nanoscience at McGill University.
EVENT DESCRIPTION
DNA nanotechnology has emerged as an exceptionally programmable method to organize materials. Most current strategies rely on assembling a complex DNA scaffold, often containing hundreds of different strands, and using it to position materials into the desired functional structure. Professor Hanadi Sleiman's research group has developed a different approach to build DNA nanostructures. Starting from a minimum number of DNA components, they create 3D-DNA host structures, such as cages, nanotubes and spherical nucleic acids, that are promising for targeted drug delivery. These can encapsulate and selectively release drugs and materials, and accomplish anisotropic the organization of metal nanoparticles and polymers.
They find that they resist nuclease degradation, silence gene expression to a significantly greater extent than their component oligonucleotides and have a favorable in vivo distribution profile. They designed a DNA cube that recognizes a cancer-specific gene product, unzips and releases drug cargo. As a result, thus acting as a conditional drug delivery vehicle; as well as DNA structures that bind to plasma proteins with low nanomolar affinities, thus increasing stability in vivo. In this lecture, she will also describe a method to ‘print’ DNA patterns onto other materials, thus beginning to address the issue of scalability for DNA nanotechnology. Finally, she will discuss the ability of small molecules to reprogram the assembly of DNA, away from Watson-Crick base-pairing and into new motifs.
THE KEYNOTE LECTURE SERIES
The keynote lectures are signature events taking place as part of a series of main lectures aligned with the program’s theme. Since 2010, +150 eminent international guest speakers, Nobel laureates, entrepreneurs, academics and distinguished local and regional leaders and decision-makers have addressed the audience.
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*This event is mandatory for the WEP students for credits.
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Hanadi Sleiman
Hanadi Sleiman is a Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair in DNA Nanoscience at McGill University. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and was a CNRS postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn’s laboratory at the Université Louis Pasteur. Her research group focuses on using molecule DNA as a template to assemble nanostructured materials. Sleiman is Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2016), Associate Editor of J. Am. Chem. Soc., and Editorial Advisory Board member of J. Am. Chem. Soc., Chem., J. Org. Chem., and ChemBioChem. She received the McGill Principal’s Prize (2002) and the Leo Yaffe Award (2005) for Excellence in Teaching.
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