Revealing the tug of war within graphene

Sabina Caneva holds an Undergraduate-Masters degree in Materials Science from Oxford University and a PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. In 2016, she joined the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience in Delft as a postdoc between the Departments of Quantum Nanoscience and Bionanoscience. From 2018-2020, she was a Marie Curie Fellow working on molecular electronics and nanopore sensors. Sabina will start her tenure-track position at the Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering in May 2020.

 

Her current research focuses on creating nanoelectromechanical systems to study the mechanotransduction mechanisms in biological nanopores at single-molecule level. She will develop lab-on-chip devices that integrate acoustic tweezers and nanopore technology to spatially and temporally manipulate mechanosensitive proteins in biomimetic membranes. The aim is to generate a scalable and contact-free nanofluidic platform to monitor both the transport properties and the dynamic response of the proteins to applied forces. Such actuation and detection schemes can have important implications for molecular diagnostics by enabling screening of compounds that inhibit or promote protein function in real time.