Speaker: Deblina Sarkar, Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, AT&T Career Development Chair Professor at MIT Media Arts and Sciences, and Founder and Director of NCB Research Lab
Title: Of Computers, Brain, and Neurological Diseases
Abstract: While the computing demands of Information Technology are ever increasing, the capabilities of electronics have hit fundamental walls due to energy and dimensional unscalability. In this talk, I will demonstrate the quantum mechanical transistor, which beats the fundamental energy limitations. This device is the world’s thinnest channel (6 atoms thick) sub-thermal tunnel-transistor. Thus, it has the potential to allow dimensional scalability to beyond Silicon scaling era and thereby to address the long-standing issue of simultaneous dimensional and power scalability.
Going beyond electronic computation, I will discuss about the biological computer: the brain, which can be thought of as an ultimate example of low power computational system. I will introduce the technology, which reveals for the first time, a nanoscale trans-synaptic architecture in brain and the way mother nature has engineered biomolecular organization in the brain to optimize its computing efficiency. This technology can also be used to decipher intriguing biomolecular nanoarchitectures related to neurological diseases, otherwise invisible to existing technologies.
I will conclude with our group’s research vision for how extremely powerful technologies can be built by fusing diverse fields and discuss briefly about the research directions of my new lab at MIT.
Bio: Deblina Sarkar is an assistant professor at MIT and AT&T Career Development Chair Professor at MIT Media Lab. She heads the Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek research group. Her group carries out trans-disciplinary research fusing engineering, applied physics, and biology, aiming to bridge the gap between nanotechnology and synthetic biology to develop disruptive technologies for nanoelectronic devices and create new paradigms for life-machine symbiosis. Her inventions include, among others, a 6-atom thick channel quantum-mechanical transistor overcoming fundamental power limitations, an ultra-sensitive label-free biosensor and technology for nanoscale deciphering of biological building blocks of brain. Her PhD dissertation was honored as one of the top 3 dissertations throughout USA and Canada in the field of Mathematics, Physical sciences and all departments of Engineering. She is the recipient of numerous other awards and recognitions, including the Lancaster Award, Technology Review’s one of the Top 10 Innovators Under 35 from India, NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.
Seminar Host: Martin Thuo
Webinar Link: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/94643446993