Presenter
Ben Roberts
Ben is a postdoc in the Prins group at the University of Padua, working on nonequilibrium chemical systems. He obtained his PhD in the Leigh group at the University of Manchester working on designing and understanding autonomous chemically fuelled molecular motors and pumps.
Abstract:
The consumption of chemical energy to drive the formation of complex, out-of-equilibrium structures is a key tool used by biological organisms to achieve the high-fidelity recognition and responsive structures necessary for life. However, while recent advances in (single-component) molecular motors and pumps have provided insight into this chemistry, the problem of how to achieve such behaviors in multi-component reaction systems has proven far from trivial. Using competitive DNA duplex formation for a model system, we have created an information ratchet that demonstrates that a higher selectivity can be achieved using an energy dissipating process than through the use of thermodynamic recognition elements alone. This mirrors kinetic proofreading in biological systems, though without relying on complex cellular machinery. Indeed, we demonstrate that, like kinetic proofreading during DNA replication or protein synthesis, our ratchet increases the quantity of information transferred from the template to the duplex identity, potentially indicating a solution to Eigen’s paradox by lowering the complexity threshold required to achieve super-statistical selectivity.
