INTRODUCTION TO BIONANOMATERIALS

WHAT IS BIONANOTECHNOLOGY?

Bionanotechnology is a field that concerns the utilization of biological systems optimized through evolution, such as cells, cellular components, nucleic acids, and proteins, to fabricate functional nanostructured and mesoscopic architectures comprised of organic and inorganic materials.

ORIGIN OF BIONANOTECHNOLOGY

Bionanotechnology— is a term coined for the area of study where nanotechnology has applications in the field of biology and medical sciences. One can also say that “Bionanotechnology” is derived by the combination of two terms: “nanotechnology,” and “biotechnology”

Bionanotechnology is originally designed to generate and manipulate nanostructured materials, to basic and applied studies of fundamental biological processes

RECOMBINANT DNA TECHNOLOGY

Recombinant DNA technology is the core of Bionanotechnology.

Today, Recombinant DNA technology is growing at brisk rate to create new machinery for protein s production

Mutation, Recombination , slicing or creation of entirely new genes is possible by Recombinant DNA technology.

Sequence of large quantity of genes can be determined easily

MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES

Monoclonal antibodies are monospecific antibodies that are made by identical immune cells that are all clones of a unique parent cell.

Monoclonal antibodies were purposed as “Magic Bullets” by Paul Ehrlich, who, at the beginning of the 20th century, postulated that, if a compound could be made that selectively targeted a disease-causing organism, then a toxin for that organism could be delivered along with the agent of selectivity.

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MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES

Monoclonal antibodies are typically made by fusing myeloma cells with the spleen cells from a mouse that has been immunized with the desired antigen.

Polyethylene glycol is used to fuse adjacent plasma membranes, but the success rate is low so a selective medium in which only fused cells can grow is used. This is because myeloma cells have lost the ability to synthesize hypoxanthine-guanine-phosphoribosyl transferase (HGPRT), an enzyme necessary for the salvage synthesis of nucleic acids.

This mixture of cells is then diluted and clones are grown from single parent cells on microtitre wells. The antibodies secreted by the different clones are then assayed for their ability to bind to the antigen The most productive and stable clone is then selected for future use.

BIONANOMATERIALS AS ANTIVIRAL AGENTS

Silver nanoparticles possess many unique properties that make them attractive for use in biological applications.

Recently, it was shown that 10 nm silver nanoparticles were bactericidal, which is promising in light of the growing number of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

An area that has been largely unexplored is the interaction of nanomaterials with viruses and the possible use of silver nanoparticles as an antiviral agent.

NANOWIRE BIOSENSORS

Nanowires are new materials, which have the characteristic of low weight with extraordinary mechanical, electrical, thermal and multifunctional properties.

Next generation sensor platforms will require significant improvements in sensitivity, specificity and parallelism in order to meet the future needs in variety of fields.

Sensors made of nanowires exploit some fundamental nanoscopic effect in order to meet the requirements.

The advantages such as size scale, aspect ratio and other properties of nanowires are especially apparent in the use of electrical sensors such as electrochemical sensors and in the use of field-effect transistors.

NATURAL BIONANOMACHINERY

information-driven nanoassembly harnessing of light chemical, electrochemical and mechanical energy sources chemical transformationExisting bionanomachinery includes: novel biomaterials biomolecular motors mechanisms of transport, biosensors self-replicating structures.

Natural bionanomachinery provides abundant examples of solutions to nanoscale functional applications. These include:

DNA SENSOR Silicon nanowires and DNA modified gold nanowires have been

used for the DNA sensors

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