Seminars

CANCELLED -Solid-state Electronics and Single-molecule Biophysics

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Dr. Ken Shepard

Abstract

This seminar has been cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. It will be rescheduled at a later date.

Technological advances in the development of fluorescent probes, solid-state imagers, and microscopy techniques have enabled biomolecular studies at the single-molecular level. Fluorescent techniques use light as an intermediary and rely on imagers for interfacing to the solid-state. More intriguing are new electronic techniques for single-molecule detection based on charge. In particular, both nanopores and nanotube field-effect transistors have demonstrated capabilities for single-molecule detection. Here, we review and discuss the potential advantages these direct solid-state interfaces bring to biophysics in terms of transducer gain, signal-to-noise ratio, specificity and spatial resolution.

Speaker Biography

Ken Shepard received the B.S.E. degree from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, in 1987 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1988 and 1992, respectively. From 1992 to 1997, he was a Research Staff Member and Manager with the VLSI Design Department, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, where he was responsible for the design methodology for IBM’s G4 S/390 microprocessors. Since 1997, he has been with Columbia University, New York, where he is now Professor of Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He also was Chief Technology Officer of CadMOS Design Technology, San Jose, CA, until its acquisition by Cadence Design Systems in 2001. His current research interests include CMOS mixed-signal design for biological applications, power electronics, and carbon-based electronics. He has served on the Program Committees for ISSCC, IEDM, VLSI Symposium, ICCAD, DAC, ISCAS, ISQED, GLS-VLSI, TAU, and ICCD. He received the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Doctoral Thesis Prize in 1992, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1998, and the 1999 Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award from the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Systems and Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.