Matt Francis

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Matt Francis is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include organic, bioorganic, and materials chemistry: self-assembling networks of inorganic nanocrystals from modified cytoskeletal proteins, functionalized viral capsids for drug delivery and 3-D nanomaterial construction, and new synthetic methods for site-specific protein modification. He recently spoke on the subject of his research at the 2007 Foresight Vision Weekend.

Research in the Francis Group is focused on the development of new synthetic methods for the construction of nanoscale materials. The central strategy involves the attachment of new functional components to specific locations on structural proteins, and the subsequent self-assembly of these conjugates into new types of materials with useful electronic and biological functions.