Professor Golovchenko is Rumsford Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University. His broad research career has encompassed research posts at Harvard University and Aarhus University in Denmark, and industry positions at Bell Labs, in national laboratories at Brookhaven and Livermore and at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also a member of the Rowland Institute for Science, an interdisciplinary non-profit basic research institute in Cambridge.
The Harvard Nanopore Group
The Harvard Nanopore Group is led by Professor Daniel Branton and Professor Jene Golovchenko. The group has been investigating electronic methods for very rapidly detecting, characterising and sequencing single molecules of DNA. A detector consisting of a single nanopore in a thin, insulating, solid-state membrane could mimic the function of alpha hemolysin pores in lipid bilayers, while serving as a platform for integrated electronic detection devices. The group’s research has lead to the development of a new ion-beam-based method for creating nanoscale structures in semiconductors called 'ion beam sculpting'.
The group is also developing other applications that may utilise the sensitivity and speed of nanopore probing, and is investigating the physics of DNA polymer movement through the confined space of a nanopore, co-ordinating the application of material science tools to fabricate solid-state nanopores, and developing the associated biochemistry, molecular biology, electronics, and signal processing to effect molecular recognition.
Professor Golovchenko specialises in studying the fundamental interactions of radiation and matter and the application of this knowledge to revealing and controlling the properties of materials.