Descrizione del progetto
I nanotubi di carbonio sono un faro di luce nei biosensori altamente sensibili
La natura è spesso fonte di ispirazione per scienziati e ingegneri, e il rilevamento è forse una delle funzioni più importanti per le applicazioni biomediche. Spesso gli scienziati cercano di riprodurre le capacità della natura, riuscendo sempre più spesso a superarle, soprattutto quando le molecole e i processi biologici vengono utilizzati come componenti di sofisticati sistemi creati dall’uomo. Il progetto NanoBiOptics, finanziato dall’UE, prevede di sfruttare i vantaggi combinati di biomateriali quali gli acidi nucleici artificiali e nanomateriali quali i nanotubi di carbonio a parete singola. Il ricorso alle tecniche di bioingegneria permetterà agli scienziati di superare i limiti intrinseci dei nanosensori attualmente ingegnerizzati, dando vita a una nuova generazione di sensori ottici altamente sensibili per la rilevazione di bioanaliti.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
- 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
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
1015 Lausanne
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