Prof. Devleena Samanta from The University of Texas at Austin will present DNA-Based Nanomaterials for Sensing, Regulating, and Improving Enzyme Function.
Abstract:
Enzymes are essential for life, driving biological processes and serving as powerful tools in medicine and industry. Their activity is crucial for diagnostics, therapeutics, and biocatalysis, yet traditional methods to detect, regulate, and enhance enzyme activity often lack precision, efficiency, and control. Our lab develops DNA-based molecular tools and nanomaterial interfaces to create programmable strategies for sensing, controlling, and improving enzyme function.
Detecting active enzymes is vital for understanding biological function and diagnosing diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 and cancer, where enzyme activity—not just expression—determines disease progression. We have designed DNA-barcoded nanostructures that enable highly sensitive, multiplexed enzyme detection, offering 100-fold greater sensitivity than conventional probes. These sensors perform reliably in complex biological samples, including patient-derived specimens.
Regulating enzyme activity is key for controlling biological pathways and therapeutic applications. We developed Single-Molecule DNA Tweezers (SMDTs)—DNA-based nanostructures that function as molecular switches, toggling enzyme activity in response to user-defined molecular cues such as nucleic acids or proteins. By leveraging SMDTs, we demonstrate highly specific and tunable enzyme control, establishing a versatile framework for dynamic biomolecular regulation.
Enhancing enzyme activity is key to improving the efficiency of biocatalytic processes. While nanomaterials have been observed to enhance enzyme activity, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood, and clear design principles are lacking. Through systematic tuning of nanoparticle surface ligands—modulating charge, length, structure, and hydrophobicity—we have uncovered how enzyme-nanoparticle interactions can be tailored to enhance the activity of peroxidase enzymes by over 15-fold. This approach provides a rational framework for optimizing enzyme performance and offers a promising alternative to protein engineering for biocatalysis.
Together, our work establishes a unified strategy for enzyme sensing, regulation, and enhancement, leveraging DNA nanotechnology and nanomaterial interfaces. These advances provide powerful new approaches for precision diagnostics, synthetic biology, and biocatalysis, with far-reaching applications in medicine, biotechnology, and industrial catalysis.
Devleena Samanta Bio: Devleena Samanta is the William H. Tonn Endowed Assistant Professor of Chemistry, an Associate Member of the Livestrong Cancer Institutes, and a member of the Texas Materials Institute at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). Her research focuses on developing protein and DNA-based nanostructures for chemical sensing and therapeutic applications. She is the first faculty member from UT Austin to win the prestigious Packard Fellowship in the chemistry category. Her achievements in the field have also been recognized with numerous other honors, including a Scialog Fellowship, the Outstanding Researcher Award from the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN), and selection as a Hanna Gray Fellow Finalist by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Devleena is also a passionate teacher and mentor, dedicated to creating opportunities for students from underprivileged backgrounds. She is a recipient of the College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award and the Natural Sciences Foundation Teaching Excellence Award at UT Austin, as well as the Outstanding Mentor Award from the IIN.
Devleena earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University in 2017 under the mentorship of Professor Richard N. Zare. She was supported by a Winston Chen Stanford Graduate Fellowship and a Center for Molecular Analysis and Design Fellowship. She then trained with Professor Chad A. Mirkin at Northwestern University as an IIN Postdoctoral Fellow.