Dr. Vasili Perebeinos

November 21, 201313.00 – 14.30

Beijing – 1 Auditorium, Skolkovo School of Management

Seminar Abstract: Graphene has unique electronic and optical properties. There is strong interest in taking advantage of these properties in transistors, optoelectronic, and communication technologies. In this talk, I will review some of the intrinsic transport properties of graphene and how they are affected by environmental interactions. In applications, graphene is on insulating substrates, which introduce phonon scattering and thermal bottleneck due to the self-heating, metals form contacts, so for technology we need to understand how these affect transport. Similarly, bilayers/multilayers are misoriented, which are claimed to be “decoupled”. We find that the bilayer low energy breathing phonons provide a scattering mechanism to overcome the decoupling, which is crucial for technology. Then I will talk about the roles of phonons and electron-electron scattering on the performance of graphene photonic devices, such as optical modulators and THz radiation sources. Finally, I will discuss the implications for electronics based on other 2D materials.

Speaker Introduction:
Dr. Perebeinos received the Diploma degree with the highest honor in physics from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, in 1997 and PhD degree in physics with the Graduate Council Commendation to Distinguished Doctoral Students from State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY, USA, in 2001. Following two year postdoctoral appointment at Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, NY, USA, he joined IBM Thomas J. Watson research center in Yorktown Heights, NY, USA, as a visiting scientist in 2003, and since 2005 he is a Research Staff Member. His current research focuses on nanophotonics and nanoelectronics using group IV materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes. He is actively involved in carrier transport and optoelectronic research in low-dimensional systems.

Dr. Perebeinos received an IBM Research Outstanding Technical Accomplishment award, two IBM Research Technical Accomplishment awards, and an IBM invention achievement award.

Prof. Paul Ducheyne.

SEMINAR «Biomaterials: Merging Materials Science with Biology»

When: November 13, 2013, 13.00 – 14.30

Where: Hypercube Auditorium, 3rd floor (Skolkovo School of Management)
SEMINAR ABSTRACT:

The last decade has seen a gradual evolution to include biological functionality in devices. Stent surfaces are modified to release rapamycin; RGD and other peptides are immobilized on device surfaces to stimulate tissue formation. Herein, we will focus on biological functionality of orthopaedic devices from several perspectives. First, in situ biological functionalization will be invoked to explain the excellent tissue response of existing biomaterials, namely the class of bioactive ceramics. Second, biological functionality achieved by controlled delivery from sol gel nanoporous controlled release materials will be discussed.

Controlled release silica sol gels are room-temperature processed, porous, resorbable materials with excellent biocompatibility. Many molecules including drugs, proteins and growth factors can be released from sol gels and the quantity and duration of the release can vary widely. Processing parameters render these release properties exquisitely versatile. Based on a thorough understanding and an extensive control of release properties, various treatment modalities for unsolved clinical problems are advancing towards the clinic. They include the treatment of osteomyelitis, the treatment of surgical pain, the treatment of MRSA and the delivery of labile growth factors.

SPEAKER INTRODUCTION:

Paul Ducheyne is Professor of Bioengineering and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery Research at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. He is the Director of its Center for Bioactive Materials and Tissue Engineering. He also is Special Guest Professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where he obtained his Materials Science and Engineering degrees.
Paul Ducheyne has lectured around the world and currently serves, or has served on, the editorial board of more than ten scientific journals in the biomaterials, bioceramics, bioengineering, tissue engineering, orthopaedics and dental fields. He has authored about 330 papers and chapters, and he has edited 16 books and book volumes. His papers have been cited about 9,300 times with an “h-factor” of 54; his ten most visible papers have been cited about 2,500 times. He is Editor-in Chief of Comprehensive Biomaterials, a 6-volume, 3,650-page major reference work published by Elsevier in August 2011. He has been granted more than 40 US patents with international counterparts. These patents formed the basis for various companies, including Orthovita (1992) (acquired by Stryker), Gentis (2000) and XeroThera (2013).
Paul Ducheyne has been secretary of the European Society for Biomaterials, is Past President of the Society for Biomaterials (USA) and Past President of the International Society for Ceramics in Medicine. Among other recognitions, he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), he was the first Nanyang Visiting Professor at the Nanyang Institute of Technology, Singapore and he has received the C. William Hall Award from the Society for Biomaterials.

We are pleased to invite you to a seminar to be given by John Towns on November 11, 2013.

When: 11 am

Where: Business center «Ural», Russian quantum center (RQC), 3d floor. Room 28.3

Guest Speaker: John Towns is  Director of the Collaborative eScience Programs Office at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. He is also PI and Project Director for the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and the Operations Manager for the Illinois Campus Cluster Program. Towns plays significant roles in the deployment and operation of high-end resources and services, and distributed computing projects. His background is in computational astrophysics utilizing a variety of computational architectures with a focus on application performance analysis. At NCSA, he provides leadership and direction in the support of an array of computational science and engineering research projects making use of advanced computing resources and services. He earned M.S. degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Illinois and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Abstract: This talk will introduce two synergistic topics. The first is a brief overview of the XSEDE program (Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment) which is funded by a $121M award from the National Science Foundation to provide advanced, integrated digital resources including compute, storage, network and visualization to US researchers and educators. In this part of the talk we will discuss the vision, mission and goals of this project and some of the distinguishing characteristics of the program.  This will be accompanied by a look ahead at where the program is headed over the next several years.  In addition we will discuss the Illinois Campus Cluster Program (ICCP) as a model of campus level shared research infrastructure and the emerging co-investment model.

Dr. Veprintsev Dmitry

November 5, 2013. Time slot: 13.00 – 14.30
Skolkovo School of Management: Beijing – 1 Auditorium

SEMINAR ABSTRACT

Intracellular signaling is activated by external or internal trigger and regulated by dynamic processes. The tumor suppressor p53is a transcription factor activated in response to carcinogenic stress. Using systematic substitutions in the p53 response element, we quantified the ability of p53 to recognize DNA and found that it is not sufficient to explain the observed specificity of its action. We speculated that a cooperative interaction with another transcription factor. We identified KLF4 as an example of such factor, and showed that it increases the affinity of p53 for DNA via direct protein – protein interactions, and that this increase is modulated by phosphorylation state of p53.
G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are membrane proteins that sense extracellular signals and activate a number of intracellular signaling pathways. Over 30% of the drugs used in medicine today modulate the activity of GPCRs. To study conformational dynamics of GPCRs and G proteins during the signal transduction cycle we are developing a novel biophysical and protein engineering technique, conformational phi-value analysis. It is based on the ideas originated in the protein folding field and is using alanine mutations as a probe for the changes of a local structure, as reflected by a change in stability of various states of a protein. By comparing stability of the mutants with those for the wild type, we can study the ligand-induced structural changes at a single-residue level. We have created a library of single alanine mutants of a G protein covering all 354 amino acids, and are now measuring the phi values for all mutants. We are planning to integrate the phi-values with NMR, crystallographic, functional and biophysical data using hybrid computational methods for structure and dynamics characterisation.

SPEAKER INTRODUCTION:

Dr. Dmitry Veprintsev graduated in biophysics from the Department of Biology, Moscow State University, in 1991. He did his PhD work at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Puschino, and the Department of Chemistry at the Ohio State University, Columbus, USA, under the supervision of Prof. Eugene A. Permyakov. In his PhD he studied the effects of metal ions on stability and folding of metal-binding proteins. In 1999 he joined the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering in Cambridge, UK, directed by Prof Sir. Alan Fersht, as a Human Frontier postdoctoral fellow, and later as a staff scientist. His work was focussed on structural and biophysical characterisation of the tumour suppressor p53 and its recognition of DNA using NMR spectroscopy and variety of biophysical methods. In 2007 he joined the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, as a staff scientist and continued his work on recognition of DNA by p53 and other cancer associated transcription factors. In 2010 Dmitry changed his research direction and moved to the Laboratory for Biomolecular Research at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, as a group leader. He is applying x-ray crystallography, NMR and biophysical approaches to study conformational dynamics of G protein coupled receptors during their signalling cycle.

Dr. Vyacheslav S. Bryantsev

When: November 7, 2013 at 13.00 – 14.30

Where: Skolkovo School of Management, Beijing – 1 Auditorium

SEMINAR ABSTRACT:

As one of the few possible rechargeable battery systems having specific energy within an order of magnitude of gasoline, Li-O2 batteries are a current target of research and development for electric vehicles. Electrolyte stability is an essential prerequisite for the successful development of a rechargeable organic electrolyte Li-O2 battery. Computational screening for stable solvents in Li-O2 batteries indicates that straight-chain alkyl amides are among the most stable classes of solvents to the reactions of the O2 electrode. In this seminar, I will present an overview of our current experimental and computational research activities toward the design of N-alkyl amide-based electrolytes that show improved stability toward both the Li metal and O2 electrode. In one approach we utilize fluorinated amide solvents as additives to stabilize the Li/electrolyte interface. However, this class of solvents appears to be not sufficiently stable in the O2 electrode. In another approach we employ lithium nitrate (LiNO3) as both an electrolyte salt and an SEI film stabilizing agent. Substantial improvement in the cycling efficiency is obtained through the cooperative effect of LiNO3 and dissolved O2. We provide a rationale why a higher concentration of LiNO3 has a positive effect on the degradation reactions of the O2 electrode. We also report on the use of new classes of amide solvents that show unexpected stability toward superoxide. Finally, based on the combined computational and experimental evidence we suggest a possible mechanism of regeneration of LiNO3 from LiNO2 in the electrolyte, which could be a contributing factor to the observed interfacial stability and cycling of Li metal when both LiNO3 and O2 are present.

SPEAKER INTRODUCTION:

Dr. Vyacheslav S. Bryantsev is a computational chemist with research interests in electronic structure theory, solvation models, and computational materials design for environment and energy storage. His goal is to develop a comprehensive framework for predictive modeling of functional materials for electrochemical energy storage and chemical recognition, and based on this knowledge, devise promising new materials with better properties.

Dr. Vyacheslav S. Bryantsev obtained his MS degree in chemistry with honors from Donetsk State University in 1999 and PhD degree in physical chemistry from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2003, under the supervision of Prof. Yuri B. Vysotsky. He was a junior faculty at the Donbas National University of Building and Architecture before joining the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, USA in 2004 as a postdoctoral research associate to work with Dr. Ben P. Hay on problems related to computer-aided molecular design and supramolecular chemistry. From 2006 to 2009 he held a position of a staff scientists in the Materials and Process Simulation Center headed by Prof. William A. Goddard III at the California Institute of Technology. Since 2009, he holds a position of a senior scientist, computational chemist at Liox Power, Inc., seeking to revolutionize energy storage through the development of advanced lithium-air electrochemical cells and systems for automotive (electric vehicles) and power industries. He is the co-author of about fifty peer-reviewed publications, one book, and two book chapters.

The notion of chaos is frequently invoked in the foundations of quantum statistical physics. Yet, the definition of quantum chaos for many-particle systems is still not fully understood. It is widely believed that classical chaotic properties are recovered, when one deals with quantum systems in the macroscopic limit and on physically relevant time scales. We show, however, that, even in the macroscopic limit and on physically relevant timescales, generic systems of interacting quantum spins do not exhibit the basic property of classical chaotic systems, namely, exponential sensitivity to small perturbations. This result is obtained by comparing the responses of classical and quantum spin systems to imperfect reversal of spin dynamics known as Loschmidt echo. The above absence of exponential sensitivity to small perturbations is an encouraging news for the efforts to create quantum simulators. It is also predicted to have measurable consequences for nuclear magnetic resonance experiments.
SPEAKER INTRODUCTION:

Dr. Boris Fine is a theoretical physicist specializing in the field of Condensed Matter Physics. His research interests include solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, high-temperatures superconductivity, and a broader set of topics associated with the foundations of quantum statistical physics and the role of chaos in many-particle systems. He graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1994. In 2000, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His Ph.D. advisor was Prof. A. J. Leggett. Boris Fine’s subsequent career included postdoctoral positions at Utrecht University, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, and University of Tennessee-Knoxville/Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 2008, he became the leader of Young Investigators Group “Quantum Dynamics and Complex Quantum Systems” at the University of Heidelberg. Since August of 2013, Boris Fine works as a professor at Nazarbayev University. He is also a guest professor at the University of Heidelberg.

When: October 17, 2013 13.00 – 14.30

Where: Skolkovo School of management, Beijing – 1 Auditorium