Prof. Erika Eiser

My group works on colloid physics, self-assembling systems, photonics and out-of-equilibrium systems such as thermophoretic phenomena. In particular, we use DNA functionalized colloids to design porous gels for applications in photonics and new battery materials, but also for the study of transport in confinement. Further, we study the fundamental aspects of how to relate the macroscopic viscoelastic properties of DNA-hydrogels to the underlying molecular structure of the DNA building-blocks (DNA nano-stars). Using the versatility of DNA we use the gained information to design new building blocks allowing us to build materials with completely new mechanical properties  Our interdisciplinary research combines experimental physics and physical chemistry (microscopy, (micro)rheology, x-ray scattering, amongst others)  as well as simulations (using oxDNA, LAMMPS, and goose-grained models developed in the group).

Based on our DNA-work we recently showed that we can exploit the multivalency of short DNA-strands attached to a surface to develop much higher sensitivity for detecting bacterial and viral DNA and possibly RNA strands (T. Curk et al. PNAS (2020) and news report https://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/news/study-shines-light-new-virus-detection-approach). This may lead to the development of faster and more accurate diagnostic tools.