I am an experimentalist, at the moment, working on a whole bunch of different projects broadly directed towards answering following questions:
“What can we control the organization of individual molecules, ions, atoms, nanoparticles or proteins, at manufacturing scale, on surfaces and volumes at atomic resolution?”
"What are the functional devices we can develop using this capability?"
“How can we use tools developed for DNA sequencing to characterize non DNA molecules and networks?”
I received my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Boston University with my thesis work focusing on developing a device for label free characterization of individual bio-molecules. While the whole Phd endeavor in Prof. Luca Dal Negro’s lab helped me learn a lot about microscopy, fundamental physics, nanofabrication and a bit of number theory, I only partially succeed in my goal of label-free single molecule characterization. Specifically, while the experiments suggested that I was able to create devices with single-molecule sensitivity we couldn’t do this as reproducibly as I wanted. The main problem wasn’t with device design, i.e. it could “sense”/“detect” a single molecule if it was in the active area of the device, the problem was making sure that a molecule was reproducibly positioned/captured at the active area. Nonetheless, my graduate research was some of the first efforts towards experimentally studying 2D aperiodic nano-structures and I was awarded the “Outstanding doctoral thesis award” from the Electrical Engineering Department in Boston University.
Towards the end of my graduate studies, one of my main obsessions was trying to solve the problem of deterministically organizing single molecules on surfaces, in great part due to the problems I was facing in my experiments. And, this obsession led me to change my research focus from optical physics to DNA nanotechnology, done as a postdoc/research scientist at Caltech, working with Paul Rothemund. I worked on solving the problem of organizing single molecules on a surface while also playing with DNA nano machines, polymer brushes, nanoparticle synthesis, microscopy, paper microfluidics and cell-free systems. Some of the work got published, others are fun experiments to be talked about told over a pint of beer and along the way I also got Robert Dirks Molecular Programming Prize (2017) for merging DNA nanotechnology with conventional micro-fabrication. After Caltech, I was briefly at Google [X] where, in addition to getting a whole bunch of snacks, I dabbled on a bunch of forward looking projects that I would talk about if I am given enough alcohol.
You can read more about the research I am performing in the "Research" section.
Note about my research section:
Rather than trying to write vague description of my research I have attempted to craft my research section with enough details so the few who reading this (or, cyber-stalking me :)) might get some concrete ideas. If anything looks interesting and you want to know more details, just send me a mail and I would be more than happy to share the details. Alternatively, if you want to take some of the ideas and develop it yourself, then by all means go for it!!! However, it would awesome if you dropped me a line because it might be more fun pool our resources or at the very least I could just make you aware of difficulties (and solution) we might have experienced. At the end of the day "Ideas are Easy, execution is what matters".
"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."
- Richard Feynman
“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.”
- Vince Van Gogh
The above two quote, one from a scientist and the other from an artist, succinctly describes the entirety of approach to scientific research philosophy. My interests are firmly rooted in experimental investigation of extremely challenging problems where I have the highest probability of messing up. More often than not this approach allows freedom to present data in new, often unconventional fashion, present opportunities to capture images that are one of a kind (gives the failed artist in me some happiness), keep me out of my comfort zone and helps me look at existing problems from completely new perspectives. It also doesn't hurt that I end up meeting (and hanging out) with a diverse crowd of slightly eccentric people.
Ashwin Gopinath
3-158, Dept of Mechanical Engineering,
77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge,
MA 02139
Ph. no: +1 - 626-644-8884
email: (a+gopi at mit dot edu) or (firstname.lastname at gmail dot com)