POTSDAM -- Clarkson University Assistant Professor of Physics Maria E. Gracheva has edited a book and co-written an article about her research on nanopores.

Gracheva joined the faculty at Clarkson in 2008 after working with the University of Illinois on a National Institute of Health-funded project involving nanopores and DNA sequencing.

“Nanopores are tiny holes in cell membranes which are used for ion and biomolecule transport in and out of cells. We study nanopores in artificial semiconductor membranes with a goal of creating solid state sensors for different biomolecules, including ultra-fast DNA sequencing devices,” said

Gracheva. “This is of great interest for medicine, but so far all methods of extracting the sequences have been very expensive and time consuming. It costs about $10 million and a month to get the full genome. This obviously restricts research.”

Gracheva uses nanopores to bring down the cost and the time to gain the same

knowledge.

Additionally, Gracheva and some colleagues co-wrote an article highlighted in a Nanotechnology Journal editorial.

This piece is about “slowing down and stretching out DNA with an electrically tunable nanopore.” The fact that it was highlighted “means that our research has been recognized by the editor as making significant contribution to science,” she pointed out.

Gracheva works in the Clarkson Physics Department with Research Assistant Professor Dmitriy Melnikov, graduate student I-ning Amy Jou, visiting (summer) international student Anna Nadtochiy (from Moscow State University, the “Harvard of Russia”) and Clarkson Honors Program student Chris McKinney.