Vinod Saranathan, professeur associé au sein de la division des sciences (SIAS) de l'université de Krea en Inde, invité par David. Il nous présentera ses travaux de recherche qui portent sur :
Abstract:
Colors in organisms can be produced either chemically by pigments or physically by the interference of light scattered from photonic nanostructures or sometimes by both. Fade-proof, vivid, saturated structural colors that have evolved over millions of years are an ideal source to look for natural solutions to our current technological challenges and can provide facile biomimetic routes for eco-friendly materials synthesis towards functional applications from sensors, photonics, energy harvesting to catalysis. However, given that the underlying nanostructures are overwhelmingly diverse in form and function, their characterization has
lagged for over a century. I have pioneered the use of synchrotron Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) as a high throughput technique to structurally and optically characterize biophotonic nanostructures from hundreds of species, in a comparative framework. This has led to the understanding that all these diverse, mesoscale nanostructures share a unifying theme – they appear to be self-assembled within cells by bottom-up and/or directed processes. For instance, I led the discovery of single gyroid photonic crystals in the iridescent green wing scales of certain lycaenid and papilionid butterflies whose growth beautifully pre-empt our current engineering approaches. In this seminar, I will broadly summarize our current state of knowledge about the structure, function, development and evolution of organismal structural colors in insects with a focus on butterflies.
Biography:
Dr. Vinod Saranathan is an associate professor in the Division of Sciences, within the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS) at Krea University, an elite 4-year liberal arts university in southern India, where he studies the physical and biological basis of structural color-producing biophotonic nanostructures in birds and insects. He has published in leading scientific journals including PNAS, Advanced Materials, Proceedings of the Royal Society B and his research has been featured in prominent international and national print (New York Times, LA Times, Atlantic Monthly, Hindu Business Line, Times of India, etc.) and broadcast news media (BBC, CBC, NPR, Channel News Asia, etc.). Vinod received a bachelor’s degree in Physics with a minor in Philosophy cum laude from Ohio Wesleyan University. Funded by a Dillon and Mary Ripley Graduate Fellowship, he earned a Master’s in 2007 and a PhD in 2011 from Yale University, in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Subsequently, Vinod was a Royal Society Newton Fellow at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. While at Oxford, he was also elected to an Edward P. Abraham Cephalosporin Junior Research Fellowship at Linacre College. Prior to joining Krea University, Vinod was faculty at the liberal arts Yale-NUS College, and the Department of Biological Sciences at NUS, Singapore, and an adjunct PI at the NUS Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI).
