Mixed oxides including SiO2', 'and supported oxides on SiO2', 'comprise the majority of', 'heterogeneous catalysts employed in the chemical industry. SiO2', '-Al2O3', 'and microporous,', 'crystalline variants called zeolites have been used widely since the 1960s in petroleum', 'processing, commodity chemical production, and fine chemical synthesis [1]. SiO2', 'supported', 'TiOx catalysts...
The ability to efficiently sense and respond to molecular signals is crucial for any organism's survival. Sensitive, specific and timely, microbial sensing systems provide an excellent starting point for the engineering of single-celled organisms to detect new molecules of human interest. Towards this goal, our lab pursues the engineering of...
Computational models greatly benefit metabolic engineering efforts by helping to elucidate experimental observations and predict engineering targets for improved cellular performance. Additionally, supplementing experimental efforts with computational modeling can reduce the loss of time and resources in the lab by narrowing down testing conditions. In optimal cases, computational models can...
The rational and deliberate assembly of functional materials from nanoscale building blocks requires a fundamental understanding of interactions between individual components as well as their collective behavior. This thesis investigates the hierarchical organization of nanoparticles using DNA into well-defined three-dimensional materials on the micrometer and millimeter length scales. This assembly...
Metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce useful compounds from renewable substrates is a promising means for sustainable, on-demand production of chemicals. However, efforts to design and engineer microbial cell factories are constrained by costly and slow “build” times in which each genetic variation requires re-engineering a new strain for each...
Graphene and graphene oxide (GO), a highly oxidized form of graphene, are materials with incredibly interesting chemical and mechanical properties. These materials have high surface areas and electrical properties that can be tuned by reducing the amount of oxygenates on the surface. They have already demonstrated their importance in the...
Individuals commonly engage in collaborative behavior to more easily produce works of high societal impact. The effect of many individual characteristics such as age or gender on the effectiveness of a team is still unclear. Gender is especially pertinent because many professional settings are still far from gender parity, despite...
Lewis acids are an important class of catalysts for chemical synthesis and manufacturing. Tris-(pentafluorophenyl)borane (FAB) catalyst has been discovered as an excellent Lewis acid catalyst for a great variety of reactions in organic and organometallic chemistry, particularly for alkoxylation reactions which is relevant to the industrial production of polyether alcohols....
There is a need for alternative biomanufacturing solutions to produce novel medicines and help solve long-standing issues regarding difficult-to-treat diseases. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) provides scientists with a new paradigm for producing proteins with an unprecedented freedom and control over the biomolecular machinery involved. In this document, I describe my...
The Escherichia coli ribosome is a 2.4 MDa molecular machine that consists of a large subunit and a small subunit, and is the key catalyst in gene expression, responsible for synthesizing proteins from amino acids in a sequence-defined fashion with impressive speed and accuracy. Expanding the repertoire of ribosome substrates...