Abstract：Biological nanopores widely exist in nature and provide inspiration for the development of artificial nanopores with applications in biosensing, ionic rectification, molecular filtering, and energy conversion. This talk will focus on the understanding of polymer-coated nanopores based on a molecular theory. I will first present our recent efforts on modeling the nuclear pore complex, the largest molecular channel in eukaryotic cells. Our theoretical work predicts that the intrinsically disordered proteins inside the nuclear pore nano-compartmentalize into territories rich in distinct functional groups, accompanied by a polarized electrostatic field. Inspired by the nuclear pore, we have designed two artificial nanopores based on either amphiphilic polymers or polyampholytes. In the first case, our theory demonstrates that sequence-designed amphiphilic copolymers can serve as multifunctional gate in response to both pH and salt concentration. In the second case, an ionic rectifier is designed using an asymmetric polymer coating strategy. Our non-equilibrium molecular theory highlights ionic trapping as an important rectifying mechanism inside nanopores.

专家简介：黄恺，研究员，2020年入职深圳湾实验室系统与物理生物学研究所，长期致力于生物物理化学的理论研究与方法开发。研究对象涉及无序生物大分子、生物材料等交叉领域。2009年本科毕业于清华大学工程物理系，2015年在美国威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校获得材料学博士学位，之后在美国西北大学生物医学工程系接受博士后训练。近年来建立了染色质折叠的“三维森林”模型，为基因组的多级物理结构提供了全新的物理图像；对细胞核孔复合体进行计算机建模，发现无序核孔蛋白在疏水、静电、位阻等物理作用下的微观相分离，并基于无序蛋白的启发设计出仿生智能纳米孔道；针对界面物理化学发展了多种计算方法，揭示了界面处复杂物理作用网络与化学反应的耦合。以第一作者及通讯作者在Science Advances, Nature Communications, Journal of the American Chemical Society, ACS Nano, Biophysical Journal, Physical Review E等学术期刊上发表多篇论文。相关研究成果被美国国立卫生研究院院长Francis Collins高度评价。