Description du projet
Les nanotubes de carbone servent de référence dans les biocapteurs très sensibles
La nature sert souvent d’inspiration aux scientifiques et ingénieurs, et la détection est peut-être l’une des fonctions les plus importantes et pertinentes pour les applications biomédicales. Souvent, les scientifiques cherchent à reproduire les capacités de la nature. Ils sont de plus en plus capables de les surpasser, en particulier lorsque les molécules et les processus biologiques sont utilisés comme composants de systèmes sophistiqués créés par l’homme. Le projet NanoBiOptics, financé par l’UE, entend exploiter les avantages combinés des biomatériaux, comme les acides nucléiques artificiels, et les nanomatériaux, comme les nanotubes de carbone à paroi simple. L’utilisation de techniques de génie biologique permettra aux scientifiques de surpasser les limitations inhérentes aux nanocapteurs conçus actuellement, entraînant une nouvelle génération de capteurs optiques très sensibles destinés à la détection de bioanalytes.
Objectif
Bioengineering is the synthetic biologist’s approach to engineering materials. It allows researchers to overcome billions of years of evolution to create unnatural biomolecules equipped with interactions unfounded in nature. Biomolecules offer unparalleled molecular recognition that can be tuned by engineers to create highly specific sensors. Unfortunately, biology has its limits; many biological optical sensors rely on fluorophores with limited lifetimes and visible emissions that overlap with tissue absorption. Unlike these fluorophores, single-walled carbon nanotubes benefit from fluorescence that is indefinitely photostable, demonstrating sensitivities that can detect analytes down to the single molecule. Their near-infrared wavelengths are also transparent to tissue absorption, allowing for continuous in vivo sensing. Unfortunately, these nanomaterials lack the molecular recognition biology has to offer.
In a sense, the advantages and disadvantages posed by the fields of bio- and nano-materials engineering are highly complementary. This proposal envisions a new generation of NanoBiOptic devices – devices that exploit the synergy of nano-bio hybrids – for sensing applications. We aim to bring to the nanosensor community what directed evolution has brought to chemistry; a guided approach to tuning interactions. We apply bioengineering techniques, such as artificial nucleic acid design as well as directed evolution, to circumvent current limitations in engineering nanosensors. In demonstrating these techniques, we realize previously intractable optical platforms for bioanalyte detection, as well as a single-molecule basis for imaging DNA-protein interactions, such as those found in CRISPR. Synthetic biology thus has the potential to complement the physical sciences in the engineering of new synthetic optical platforms, enabling a “revolution through evolution” of synthetic nanomaterials.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesnucleic acids
- natural sciencesbiological sciencessynthetic biology
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsoptical sensors
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materials
- natural sciencesphysical sciences
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
1015 Lausanne
Suisse