McGill UniversityDepartment of Physics
Matheus PessôaNanofluidics · Single-molecule biophysics

Welcome

Matheus Pessôa

I'm currently a PhD candidate at McGill University, working with DNA electrokinetic confinement. This is a novel on-chip single-molecule manipulation technique that I developed, recently published in Science Advances. My interests are in single-molecule manipulation and microscopy techniques.

Complete CV Google Scholar matheus.pessoa@mail.mcgill.ca
Portrait of Matheus Pessôa

Experimental nanobiophysics

Controlling single molecules in real time.

I develop nanofluidic tools to capture, confine, and dynamically manipulate individual DNA molecules using electric fields.

My research sits at the intersection of soft matter physics, nanofluidics, and single-molecule biophysics. I am a PhD candidate in Walter Reisner's Nanobiophysics Lab at McGill University.

Research overview Google Scholar ORCID
Schematic of the RECON device with parallel electrodes, patterned nanocavities, and an applied electric field
RECON device geometry. An applied AC bias localizes the electric field at patterned cavities in the lower electrode.

Current research

Dynamic molecular control on chip

The RECON platform replaces fixed geometric confinement with an electrically tunable free-energy landscape. By changing the drive waveform, we can move a polymer through equilibrium and non-equilibrium conformational states while observing it directly.

  • How does a confined polymer respond to periodic and stochastic driving?
  • Which relaxation modes govern the observed molecular response?
  • How can tunable confinement become a practical molecular-analysis tool?

Selected publications

Recent work

All publications
  1. 2025
  2. 2026
  3. 2024

Current

Completing a PhD in Physics at McGill University and exploring postdoctoral research opportunities in single-molecule biophysics, nanofluidics, and molecular instrumentation.

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