ELEC-E3260 - Biomolecules D, Lecture, 11.1.2022-24.2.2022
Kurssiasetusten perusteella kurssi on päättynyt 24.02.2022 Etsi kursseja: ELEC-E3260
Survey for the 15.02 course
Some general answers (only to questions not strictly related to the course content):
Q: What should be the structure of the group work presentation?
The structure of the group work (as well as the essay) has been shared and is available on MC. When telling us about a molecules, you should answer the following (in term of content):
- what is the chemical structure? (does this chemical structure for example provides particular properties)
- how does the molecule like? can I provide an image of it? does the molecule packing give rise to different structure? (this is generally more relevant for smaller-size molecule)
- which of the characterization techniques we have seen in class can help determining the molecule properties (other techniques are also welcome)
- why is this molecule important? where can be applied? (examples: devices? essential for some processes? helpful in medical diagnosis? food?.. it should be highlighted the relevance of the molecule for the specific application)
Q: What should be the length of the essay?
Around 10 pages (references not included) should be good to address all the sections required. Longer essays are welcome.
Q: What further courses would you recommend to someone who enjoyed this course?This is a very hard to answer, given also the fact that so many courses are available nowadays. Also consider that each technique can be easily a stand-alone course!
What I think it is important to understand is what you have enjoyed in the course (this can then help identify possible other courses):
- Did I enjoy learning about biomolecules per se?
- Did I enjoy understanding the interaction of light/electromagnetic waves with materials (and biomolecules)
- Am I interested in going deeper in the mathematical approach in the different characterization techniques?
- Am I interested in some of the medical applications?
- Am I curious to know much more details about one specific technique?
We would be happy to discuss further, once the reason for which you have enjoyed your course is more clear.
Q: Are there any research assistant positions open that are somewhat related to what we've learned on this course?
There are many possibility all around Aalto to gather hands-on experience on the techniques we have studied as well as others, both on biomolecules and materials in general. Depending on your status and your interest, this can be in the form of summer internship, thesis work, individual study modules and/or assignment. Also in this case, it would be good to identify which are your interested.
Q: What are the main take home messages of the whole course?
Q: I'd like to hear what the subjects we've discussed have in common to sort of tie the whole course together.
In addition to the main concepts associated to each techniques, it is important to know that depending of the information that you are looking for, there could be one (or more techniques) that could give you access to it. Also, almost all the time, a better picture comes when different studies are performed. In this sense, it is important to know which techniques are available, what is their mechanism and which information they can provide. Also some techniques might be good for one set of materials, but not for others.
Q: What spectroscopic methods are mainly utilized with in the field of sports technology?
Sports technology is a vast field, thus identifying a specific spectroscopic method is challenging unless you identify "which component/signal" is in need to be monitored, and consequently in which region of the spectrum this component has a meaningful response. Clearly it is quite different to monitor for example muscular work or lactate levels during a fitness session. Below few examples for your reference
Application of Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Exercise Sports Science
A brief search on PubMed, Web of Science or Google Scholar will surely return a quite broad variety of techniques.
Q: What is your main field of research? Which techniques that you presented do you use the most?
My main field of research is based on organic light emitting/sensing devices (aka device capable of emitting and/or sensing light based on organic molecule). For this research, I use often both surface probe microscopy (AFM and optical imaging) as well a absorption/luminescence-based techniques (CS)
Q: Is there specific development in any of the presented techniques (maybe from your own research field), in which you see the most potential overall?
I personally believe that spectroscopy/imaging based on THz signal has great potentials, especially when it comes to medical diagnostics. These techniques are non-invasive, not harmful for the patient and do not need contrast agent, while offering very good precision and some selectivity (CS).
Q: Which of the techniques we learned about can give the most details about the
molecule that is being investigated?
As said in various occasions, each of the techniques we have discussed, provide access to some information about a molecule, thus the suitability of the techniques depends on the parameters you are planning to investigate. For example, molecule vibrations (i.e. spectroscopies) can be related to different properties.
Q: How the techniques presented in this course are used in the field of
neuroscience?
We are not expert in neuroscience, but we believe that, as in the case of sports technology questions, some of the techniques we have discussed could be useful in the field, depending on which parameters/characteristics you are interested in.
Q: What (physics) courses would help to understand further the different imaging
methods?
- Any course on light(em wave)-matter interaction will definitely help in understanding most of the imaging methods
- Quantum Mechanics course to understand the above interactions at the electron-scale
Q: Which technique has the biggest versatility, in the sense that it can be used in a very wide array of fields?
All these techniques can be applied to materials in general, even if we have focused on the application on biomolecules.
Q: Could you take a picture/video of a real imaging device that is in (your) Aalto lab and explain how it's used in reality?
Will try our best!
Q: Which upcoming techniques are most promising / you are most excited about?
While "promising" really depends on the fields/applications, as for the technique that I am mostly excited, is definitely Scanning Electron Microscopy since I enjoy diving more and more in structural details. Although I don´t do it really anymore nowadays, but I like the challenge of getting to a X1.000.000 magnification and still getting a good image (or at the least with the information I need) :) (CS)
Q: How actively machine learning techniques are used to analyse data that is
gathered with the techniques presented in this course. e.g. in disease
identification
I (CS) am not at all an expert in Machine Learning, but I expect, like in any other fields where you can feed a large amount of data to an algorithm, also disease identification through for example imaging can be a tool for initial screening of possible diseases (or even just reduce the number of possible options).