Statement of Purpose: Hybrid nanostructures composed of various inorganic materials coupled with functional biomolecules, such as antibodies, enzymes, or DNA, are of considerable interest in the development of new research strategies for potential practical applications in biotechnological and biomedical fields, including biosensors, delivery and targeting platforms. Current approaches for coup...

We have developed a new nanochannel fabrication technique using chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) and thermal oxidation. With this technique, it is possible to control the width, length, and depth of the nanochannels without the need for nanolithography. The use of sacrificial SiO2 layers allows the fabrication of centimeter-long nanochannels. In addition, the fabrication process is CMOS comp...

The assembly of defined supramolecular architectures on a molecular scale, such as biomimetic membranes, requires the synthesis of multifunctional building blocks and a sophisticated combination of nanotechnological surface preparation techniques. A drawback of current tethered bilayer lipid membrane (tBLM) systems is their limited submembrane decoupling distance from the solid support. The nec...

Proteins are biological macromolecules that play essential roles in living organisms. Furthermore, the study of proteins and their function is of interest in other fields in addition to biology, such as pharmacology and biotechnology. Understanding the relationship between protein structure, dynamics and function is indispensable for advances in all these areas. This requires a combination of e...

Unlike classical end-point analysis PCR, real-time PCR provides the data required for quantification of the target nucleic acid. The results can be expressed in absolute terms by reference to external quantified standards or in relative terms compared to another target sequence present within the sample. Absolute quantification requires that the efficiency of the amplification reaction is the s...

The introduction of real-time PCR assays to the clinical microbiology laboratory has led to significant improvements in the diagnosis of infectious disease. There has been an explosion of interest in this technique since its introduction and several hundred reports have been published describing applications in clinical bacteriology, parasitology and virology. There are few areas of clinical mi...

The development of fluorescent methods for a closed tube polymerase chain reaction has greatly simplified the process of quantification. Current approaches use fluorescent probes that interact with the amplification products during the PCR to allow kinetic measurements of product accumulation. These probe methods include generic approaches to DNA quantification such as fluorescent DNA binding d...

In developing novel materials, Mother Nature gave us enormous inspiration with its already existing highly organized structures varying from macro to nanoand molecular scales. Biological hard tissues are the examples of composite hybrid materials having both inorganic and organic phases that exhibit excellent physical properties, all based on their evolved architectural design. Biocomposites in...

Real-time PCR is ideally suited for analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and has been increasingly used for this purpose since the advent of real-time PCR and as whole genome sequences have become available. It requires methods that are rapid, sensitive, specific and inexpensive, and several real-time methods have evolved which fulfil these requirements. Additionally real-time PCR...

Maintaining protein function at the biological-inorganic interface is a critical challenge for bionanotechnology. Specifically, nanoparticle-protein conjugates must be designed to interact with binding partners with biologically-relevant thermodynamics. Towards developing a nanoparticle-tagging system that minimizes interference with normal protein function, here we design and begin development...