Natural Nanomaterials as Building Blocks for Designing Biosensors

Nature is an inspirational source for designing biosensors. Natural materials, either biological or chemical are widely used in biosensor technology for several applications especially in medicine. This presentation will be focusing on using natural (nano)materials such as S-layer proteins [1,2], chitosan [3], and graphene [4] for designing biosensors either as diagnostic or biomimetic tools. In diagnostic applications, biosensors based on biological or chemical bricks are capable of detection of specific analytes and may recognize the captured molecules quantitatively depending on the analytical technique used. However, development of biosensors for clinical applications requires a well-organized matrix to optimize the transducer sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, natural molecules such as proteins and polymers, which have the ability to self-assembly into ordered arrays can be exploited as efficacious templates for the construction of nanostructured biosensing platforms [5]. We were able to fabricate successfully acoustic and electrical biosensors to detect tumor markers or whole cancer cells. Biomimetic sensor is another important product in biosensing technology that includes mimicry of biological systems such as cellular membranes. Synthetic membranes can be constructed by a minimal number of components but still sufficient to fulfill the basic properties of cellular life [6]. Lipid-based biosensors are exploited to investigate functions and behaviors of lipids and proteins that compose membrane models under controlled conditions in a semi-natural environment.