Nanoscale Approaches For Biomolecule Separation And Detection

Abstract

Nanotechnology has the potential to contact and impact the biological interactions at the most basic chemical and physical levels. New approaches to nanodevices allow high sensitivity and specificity with low sample requirement. Such devices are potential candidates for early disease detection at molecular levels and have important implications in associated therapeutics.This research work focuses on two different areas: developing devices for DNA detection, protein enrichment and exploring material properties to fabricate microscale/nanoscale structures. In one approach, hairpin probe DNA was used to detect fmol of ss-DNA from k-ras oncogene. In another approach, nanochannel based device was developed to selectively increase the concentration of one protein from a mixture of proteins taking advantage of antigen-antibody interactions in nanochannels. The phenomenon was demonstrated with selective separation of BSA and human hemoglobin. Further, effect of fluorescence on fluid flow through channels was studied. Towards biocompatible membranes, a rapid, simple and inexpensive approach to fabricate microchannels from 100-700 micron was developed. These channels were made in PDMS using simple chemistry and materials like nanoparticles, polyurethane and acetone, at various curing temperatures.