Interfaces between

Nanoelectronic &
Biological systems
Dr Ahson J Shaikh
Biophysics
• Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and
methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena.
• Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular
to organismic and populations.
• Biophysical research shares significant overlap with biochemistry,
molecular biology, physical chemistry, physiology, nanotechnology,
bioengineering, computational biology, biomechanics, developmental
biology and systems biology.
• Indicate the study of the physical quantities (e.g. electric
current, temperature, stress, entropy) in biological systems
Interfaces between Nanoelectronic &
Biological systems
Madkour L.H. (2019) Interfacing Biology Systems with Nanoelectronics for Nanodevices. In: Nanoelectronic Materials. Advanced
Structured Materials, vol 116. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21621-4_17
Tian, B., Liu, J., Dvir, T. et al. Macroporous nanowire nanoelectronic scaffolds for synthetic tissues. Nature Mater 11, 986–994
(2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3404
A Bio-Nanowire Device Interface
Because the sizes of biological macromolecules are comparable to nanowire building blocks,
these structures represent natural transducers for ultra-sensitive detection.
https://www.oatext.com/Vision-for-life-sciences-interfaces-between-nanoelectronic-and-biological-systems.php#gsc.tab=0
Nanowire Nanosensors: Beginning
Multiplexed Cancer Marker Detection
Marker proteins are detected selectively in presence of ca. 100-billion-fold excess
of serum proteins.
Serum samples are characterized after single step ‘desalting’purification.
(1) Buffer; (2) Donkey Serum (DS), 59 mg/ml total protein; (3) DS + 2.5 pM PSA; (4) DS + 25 pM PSA
(1) DS + 0.9 pg/ml; (2) DS. Marker proteins are detected selectively in presence of ca. 100-billion-fold excess of
serum proteins.
Nanoelectronic-Biological Interfaces Enables
• Diagnostic devices for disease detection
• General detection & kinetics platform
• New tool for single-molecule detection/biophysics
• Powerful devices for electronic and chem/bio recording from cells,
tissue & organs
• Potential implants for highly functional & powerful prosthetics, as
well as hybrid biomaterials enabling new opportunities
Progress
• Synthetic challenge of controlling structure and composition on many
length scales
• Fundamental scientific questions in 1-dimensional systems
• Central importance of nanoscale wires in integrated nanosystems
• New/novel materials can make revolutionary vs. evolutionary
changes in science and technology!
⇒ Many fundamental scientific questions remain and will require bold
researchers to address.
Nanotechnology machines' interaction with
living systems
Micro/Nanomachines Interacting with Bacteria

• Researchers have developed various strategies based on

micro/nanomachines to detect, isolate, and kill bacteria.
• The development of innovative solutions to treat bacterial diseases is
driven by the urgent demand to change the way we use antibiotics.
Nanomedicine
• Nanomedicine has showcased promising prospect in combating
bacterial infections to relieve the antibiotic-resistant strains. Among
them are:
• – Capture of bacteria by micro/nanomachines with bioreceptors
• – Killing of bacteria by micro- and nanomachines with antimicrobial
agents
• – Killing of bacteria by micro- and nanomachines through
hyperthermia therapy
• – Optical sensing of bacteria by micro/nanomachines
 Micro/Nanomachines Based on
Biological Cells
• Nature provides a myriad of sophisticated biological cells that can
display and regulate motion in well-established manners over long
ages of evolution.
• Biohybrid systems integrate these biological cells with synthetic
materials, enabling their corporation to make a bigger difference than
that by working alone.
• The cells used as building blocks include motile cells with direct
swimming ability (e.g., bacteria and spermatozoa), contractile cells
able to generate a directional tension (e.g., cardiac and skeletal
muscle cells), and immune cells bearing intrinsic chemotaxis ability
(e.g., white blood cells).
Chemotaxis: Movement of a motile cell or organism, or part of one, in a direction corresponding to a gradient of increasing or
decreasing concentration of a particular substance.
Micro/Nanomachines toward In
Vivo Applications
• Extraordinary nanotechnology efforts have been devoted to push
micro/nanomachines towards their practical use in in vivo
applications. However, this concept poses many challenges to its
practical operation.
• As a tetherless device, the in vivo navigation of micro/nanomachines
requires either self-propulsion using biocompatible fuels or
propulsion by other noninvasive energy.
Issues
• Due to the foreign nature of the synthetic micro/nanomachines, the
risk of being destroyed by the immune system and the postprocessing
after implementing tasks are crucial problems that cannot be
neglected.
• Addressing these issues requires solutions to four distinct problem
areas of micro- and nanomachines:
• – Fuel consideration
• – Power source
• – Biodegradability
• – Immunogenicity of micro/nanomachines
Micro/Nanomachines toward Intracellular
Applications
• With traditional medical technology, it is difficult to perform operations at
cellular level. The ultrasmall dimensions and tetherless design enable the
micro/nanomachines to interfere cellular processes.
• Examples of currently available cellular tasks include intracellular sensing
of endogenous targets, genetic intervention, controlled delivery and
release of desired compounds such as drug, enzyme, cytokine, and so on.
• "Despite the tremendous progress obtained in recent years, the
micro/nanomachines are far from mature in both theory and applications".
• "To push forward in-depth applications of micro/nanomachines in
biosystems, improvement is still needed in many aspects."