Cooper Levy: Nanopore Signal Processing and System Identification for Faster Event Detection

During the summer of 2008, Cooper Levy worked in the lab of Bill Dunbar in researching possible methods to increase the speed nanopore event detection. It is thought that nanopores will eventually lead an efficient, cost-effective way to sequence DNA. Before this can be done, it is believed that more information about how enzymes interact with DNA needs to be understood. In order to get this information more quickly and accurately, the speed at which a nanopore can differentiate between different events needs to be increased.

Cooper’s work focused on creating a linear circuit model of a nanopore system and fitting this system to collected data. Although no conclusions were reached, Cooper’s work led to a better understanding of the equipment being used in the nanopore experiments and how its effects on the system are seen in the collected data. Although Cooper is no longer a student at UC Santa Cruz, he plans to continue working on this project from UC Berkeley.