Kueyoung Kim
MIT Department: Biological Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Mark Bathe
Research Supervisor: Jeffrey Gorman
Undergraduate Institution: Pennsylvania State University
Hometown: State College, Pennsylvania
Website: LinkedIn
Biography
Kueyoung Kim is a rising senior studying Chemistry with a minor in Mathematics at Penn State. Through his diverse research projects, from elucidating how surfactants impact wetted oil droplets to employing DNA origami to investigate photosynthetic energy transport, he has had the opportunity to join diverse scientific communities across the world, including at the University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, and MIT. He has authored two first-author publications and received multiple awards for his work at local and national conferences. In his future endeavors pursuing a PhD in Chemistry and a research career as a professor, he is determined to apply his collaborative mindset and ceaseless curiosity to tackle questions at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and biology. Outside of the lab, Kueyoung organizes science outreach for local K12 students and serves as the President of the Eberly College of Science’s student ambassador organization.
Abstract
Constructing a DNA origami model for energy transport across
photosynthetic membranes
Kueyoung Kim1, Jeffrey Gorman2and Mark Bathe2
1Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University
2Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Life has evolved elegant methods to transport energy with near-unity efficiency. Photosynthetic organisms employ an intricate array of chromophores to shuttle quasi-particles known as excitons; the efficiency of energy transfer is optimized by controlling chromophore spacing and orientation with nanoscale precision. In comparison, modern technology primarily depends on the flow of electrons to transport energy, suffering from the inherent electrical resistivity of most materials which hamstrings efficiency. As such, understanding the biological design rules behind photosynthetic energy transport would enable us to develop new bioinspired energy technologies with improved efficiency. Here, we investigate the impact of chromophore organization on long-distance energy transport in purple bacteria using DNA origami as an experimental model. The specificity of Watson-Crick base pairings in DNA enables programmable chromophore spacing with nanoscale precision. We capitalize on this precision to fabricate a nanoscale array of Cyanine3 dye molecules scaffolded by DNA origami. We then perform steady-state photophysical characterization of the model to quantify energy transport within the system. This work provides a new tool to discern design rules for long-range excitation energy transport which will ultimately enable the creation of efficient excitonic circuits and biomimetic light harvesting systems.
