IGERT Nanomedicine E-Lecture

Date: 11/01/2011
Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Location: 408 Ell Hall
Speaker: Dr. Rajesh R. Naik, Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate

Use of Biological Recognition Elements for the Synthesis and Functionalization of Nanomaterials”

The interface between biological and nanostructured materials has resulted in the development of technological solutions for a variety of applications such as in sensing, electronics and medicine. For example, bionanosensors are able to effectively transduce chemical signals to electrical or optical signals that be easily detected in response to a cell signaling or target binding event via a biological motif or recognition element. Over the past several years biological recognition elements (BREs) such as peptides, proteins and nucleic acids that recognize nanomaterials have been identified from by several research groups. Some of these BREs have been used as molecular templates to assemble inorganic materials and others have been used to synthesize and functionalize nanomaterials, as receptor-like elements for sensing applications or in the development of hybrid materials for biomedical applications. In my talk, I will describe our work in developing biological templates to create hybrid materials by dialing-in the different biological domains that could direct the synthesis and assembly of hybrid materials, design recognition elements that are able to spontaneously decorate SWNTs and provide selectivity for field-effect transistor devices for sensing applications.