Newly engineered ZnO nanoplatforms and their initial evaluation in ultrasensitive biomedical marker detection

0729541 Hahm该项目的目标是利用纳米材料的最新进展，开发用于检测和定量医学相关蛋白质标记物的改进工具。该研究整合了氧化锌纳米棒（ZnO NRs）在检测早期疾病生物标志物方面的光学增强效应的工程原理。所提出的研究的智力价值在于在基础和工程方面。该项目提出了一种方案，其中单步生长将产生均匀尺寸，形状，密度和方向的ZnO NR，这些NR在合成后直接以阵列形式组装。该项目还将确定ZnO NR介导的荧光增强这一重要现象的确切机制。然后，该研究可以证明，易于制造的ZnO NR将实现高灵敏度的蛋白质检测，而无需化学/酶促扩增或专门的仪器。这些基于ZnO NR的蛋白质传感器可能具有比目前可用的技术上级的检测能力。该项目的结果可能导致开发敏感，低成本的检测方法，即使在超痕量水平上也可以检测人类疾病的生物医学相关标志物。在这项研究中提出的组合生长和组装过程将直接和方便地应用于生产ZnO纳米传感器阵列，与传统的自动样品处理器和荧光阅读器兼容。这种优势可以促进这些纳米平台在基础生物学、临床检测和生物医学研究中的广泛应用。这个多功能的平台不仅可以早期检测各种疾病的生物标志物，而且还可以促进环境危害和化学和生物威胁的检测。拟议的研究确实有可能推进发现和理解ZnO纳米棒的荧光检测能力。该项目包括化学和生物医学工程的研究生和本科生。

0729541HahmThe objective of the project is to utilize recent advances in nanomaterials to develop improved tools for the detection and quantification of medically relevant protein markers. The research integrates engineering principles of the optical enhancement effect of zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) in detecting early disease biomarkers. The intellectual merit of the proposed research lies in both fundamental and engineering aspects. The project presents a scheme where a single-step growth will produce ZnO NRs of a uniform size, shape, density, and orientation that are assembled in an array format, directly after synthesis. The project will also ascertain the exact mechanism dictating the important phenomenon of ZnO NR-mediated fluorescence enhancement. The research could then demonstrate that the easily fabricated ZnO NRs will enable high sensitivity protein detection without the need for chemical/enzymatic amplification or specialized instrumentation. These ZnO NR-based protein sensors could have superior detection capabilities than the currently available techniques. The project results could lead to the development of sensitive, low-cost assays of biomedically relevant markers of human disease even at ultratrace levels. The combined growth and assembly process proposed in this research will be applied straightforwardly and conveniently to produce ZnO nanosensor arrays that are compatible with conventional automatic sample handlers and fluorescence readers. This advantage can promote the widespread applications of these nanoplatforms in basic biology, clinical testing, and biomedical research. This versatile platform could not only allow early detection of various disease biomarkers but also facilitate detection of environmental hazards and chemical and biological threats.The proposed research does have a potential to advance discovery and understanding fluorescence detection capability of ZnO nanorods. The project includes the students at graduate and undergraduate levels in both chemical and biomedical engineering.