Science Direct July 6, 2022 A team of researchers in the US (City College of New York, The State University of New Jersey, Clarkson University) designed a pair of VX-binding proteins using a supercharged scaffold that coupled a large-scale phase change from unstructured to folded upon ligand binding, enabling fully internal binding sites that present the maximum surface area possible for high affinity and specificity in target recognition. Binding site residues were chosen using a new distributed evolutionary algorithm implementation in protCAD. Both designs detected VX at parts per billion concentrations with high specificity. Computational design of fully buried molecular […]
Tag Archives: Biosensors
Send in the Blow Flies: Using Insects to Sample Areas for Chemical Warfare Agents
Global Biodefense April 11, 2022 Blow flies sample the environment as they search for water and food sources and can be trapped from kilometers away using baited traps. Under a program sponsored by DARPA a team of researchers at Indiana University-Purdue University investigated blow flies as environmental chemical sample collectors following a chemical warfare attack (CWA). They exposed three species of blow flies to CWA simulants dimethyl methylphosphonate and diethyl phosphoramidate as well as the pesticide dichlorvos, followed by treatment-dependent temperature and humidity conditions to determine the persistence and detectability of these compounds under varying environmental conditions. Flies were sacrificed […]
Arrays of metallic nanoparticles can form an optical cavity tunable by liquid crystals
Phys.org March 2, 2022 An international team of researcher (the Netherlands, Japan) designed, constructed, and analyzed a tunable device combining nano-particle arrays that support collective surface lattice resonances (SLRs) with liquid crystals. By leveraging the tunability of liquid crystals and the effect of the refractive index of the environment on SLRs, the optical response of the array can be controlled electrically by switching between states in the liquid crystal. The resulting rapid and reversible spectral tuning gives users a large degree of control over SLR wavelength. Because of narrow collective resonances the changes in refractive index that can be induced […]
Team demonstrates molecular electronics sensors on a semiconductor chip
Phys.com January 25, 2022 A team of researchers in the US (industry, UC San Diego, Rice University, Harvard University) has developed a molecular electronics platform which consists of a programmable semiconductor chip with a scalable sensor array architecture. Each array element consists of an electrical current meter that monitors the current flowing through a precision-engineered molecular wire, assembled to span nanoelectrodes that couple it directly into the circuit. The sensor is programmed by attaching the desired probe molecule to the molecular wire, via a central, engineered conjugation site. The observed current provides a direct, real-time electronic readout of molecular interactions […]
Novel biosensors set to revolutionize brain-controlled robotics
Science Daily December 22, 2021 Researchers in Australia have detected the EEG signals with high sensitivity using epitaxial graphene (EG) grown on silicon carbide on silicon. The dry and non-invasive approach exhibited a markedly improved skin contact impedance when benchmarked to commercial dry electrodes, as well as superior robustness, allowing prolonged and repeated use also in a highly saline environment. They observed a new phenomenon of surface conditioning of the EG electrodes. The prolonged contact of the EG with the skin electrolytes functionalize the grain boundaries of the graphene, leading to the formation of a thin surface film of water […]
BD21 Biosensor Redesign: DHS Seeks Contractors to Improve Urban BioThreat Classification Sensor
Global Biodefense September 3, 2021 The Biodefense for the 21st Century (BD21) program is working to design, develop, and deploy networked detection systems that continuously monitor the air, collect real-time data, and employ data analytics to detect anomalies. DHS has identified the need for further research and development of commercially available biological detection and presumptive identification technologies to enable timely detection and characterization of airborne bio-threats. The biosensors will be deployed both in indoor and outdoor urban environments to conduct real-time monitoring of biological threats. The redesign is to occur over 15 months and will take place in 2 phases. […]
Color-coded biosensor illuminates in real time how viruses attack hosts
Science Daily September 25, 2020 Researchers at the Colorado State University invented a biosensor that lights up blue when viral translation is happening, and green when normal host translation is happening, in single living cells. They have shown this host-attacking process, at the single-molecule level in living cells, and they have reproduced these behaviors in computational models. The models showed that both healthy human RNA and viral RNA fluctuate between states that actively express proteins and those that are silent. The combination of their sensors and computational analyses provide powerful tools to understand, predict, and control how future drugs might […]
Metal-breathing bacteria could transform electronics, biosensors, and more
Science Daily July 28, 2020 Some bacteria that are adapted to specific geochemical or biochemical environments can create interesting and novel materials. Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute synthesised molybdenum disulfide nanomaterials at the site of S. oneidensis biofilms grown in the presence of molybdenum trioxide and sodium thiosulfate. Analysis revealed the presence of molybdenum disulfide nanoparticle aggregates 50–300 nm in diameter with both hexagonal and rhombohedral polytypes. The use of S. oneidensis offers the advantage of significantly reduced heat and chemical solvent input compared to conventional methods of synthesizing molybdenum disulfide nanoparticles. The process can be used for the generation […]
Opto-thermoplasmonic patterning of 2D materials
Nanowerk August 14, 2018 To overcome problems associated with laser processing of high-quality micro- and nanopatterns of diverse two-dimensional (2D) materials, researchers at UT Austin have developed an all-optical lithographic technique called optothermoplasmonic nanolithography (OTNL) to achieve high-throughput, versatile, and maskless patterning of different atomic layers. Taking graphene and molybdenum disulfide they have shown that both thermal oxidation and sublimation in the light-directed temperature field can lead to direct etching of the atomic layers. They demonstrated that by steering the laser beams programmable patterning of 2D materials into complex and large-scale nanostructures is possible. The method can be applied to […]