Convergence through micro-nano-bio integration and applications

根据诺贝尔奖获得者菲利普·夏普的说法，生命科学中的第三次革命只有通过生命科学家、物理学家和工程师的合作才能实现，才能解决研究大脑和神经系统、心血管系统、癌症诊断、从实验室到临床的想法商业化或人员培训方面的现有挑战。微纳生物一体化是生物科学与微纳米技术之间的桥梁，是实现这种融合的途径之一。微纳米生物集成是一种通过集成纳米特征来提高芯片上实验室生物交互性能的技术。简单地说，生物和化学物种，如细胞、蛋白质、DNA、酶、抗原、抗体等，可以被认为是与环境相互作用的微或纳米机器。这些相互作用的影响可能会改变环境的机械、光学、物理、化学和生物特性。这些相互作用产生的输出信号和响应的强度非常低，这使得用传统手段很难检测到，因为它们需要感测机制，必须非常接近相互作用区，具有非常高的灵敏度和高吞吐量。检测这些交互作用的另一个非常重要的考虑因素是非侵入性要求，以便交互作用不受传感机制本身的影响。可以预见，现在迫切需要开发这样一种装置和机制：具有接近的、光学的传感手段、具有成本效益的制造的多样性，并且非常小、非常灵敏、低检测水平和与生物物种兼容。因此，这一应用计划开发许多技术，如(I)适合于通信和传感的基于微流体和纳米集成平面光波导的技术(Ii)具有巨大化学和生物传感潜力的聚合物纳米复合材料(Iii)非常适合于敏感物理传感、细胞机械生物学研究、流体传感、生物传感和化学传感的三维悬浮聚合物微流体，以及(Iv)用于生物应用的具有纳米生物相互作用的芯片实验室。除了在结合生物和工程专业知识的各个方面创造基础研究知识外，这项研究还将因其应用性质而吸引业界的浓厚兴趣。简而言之，覆盖广泛领域的微纳米生物集成的发展

As per Nobel Laureate Philip Sharp, the third revolution in life sciences that can tackle existing challenges in studying Brain and nervous systems, cardiovascular systems, cancer diagnosis, commercializing of ideas from lab to clinics or training of personnel can happen only through collaboration of life scientists, physical scientists and engineers. Micro-Nano-Bio integration, which is the bridging of bio sciences with micro and nano technologies, is one of the ways of implementing this convergence. Micro-nano-bio integration is a technology to enhance the performance of bio interactions in lab on chips by integrating nano features. In simple terms, the biological and chemical species, such as, cells, proteins, DNA, enzymes, antigen, antibody, etc. can be considered as micro or nano machines that interact with environments. The effects of these interactions could change the mechanical, optical, physical, chemical and biological properties of the environment. These interactions produce output signals and responses that are very low in strength making it very difficult to be detected by conventional means as they need sensing mechanisms that have to be very close to the interaction zone with very high sensitivity and high throughput. Another very important consideration to detect these interactions is non-invasive requirement so that interactions are not influenced by the sensing mechanism itself. One can foresee now that there is an urgent need to develop devices and mechanisms that would have close proximity, optical means of sensing, multiplicity in fabrication for cost-effectiveness and are also very small, very sensitive with low detection level and compatible with biological species. Hence, this application plans to develop many technologies such as (i) microfluidic and nano-integrated planar optical waveguide based technologies suitable for communication and sensing (ii) polymer nano composites that have great potential for chemical and biosensing (iii) 3D suspended polymer microfluidics that is ideal for sensitive physical sensing, mechanobiological studies of cells, fluid sensing, biosensing and chemical sensing, and (iv) Lab on chips with nano-bio interactions for biological applications. In addition to the creation of fundamental research knowledge in the area of convergence on various aspects combining biological and engineering expertise, this research will also attract strong interest from industries due to its applied nature. In nutshell, the development of micro-nano-bio integration that covers a wide spectrum o