Novel strategy for quantitating colloidal nanostructures by phage-display immunoassay

Recent advances in nanotechnology have led to he development of new technologies that will signficantly impact biological research and applications. This includes the integration of quantum dots for studying biological processes, use of metal nanostructures for cancer treatment, or the study of nanotoxicity. It is clear that there will be broad applications stemming from nanotechnology discoveries and the Chan lab is one of the leading labs in developing nanotechnology for biological and biomedical applicatons. The Chan lab has a full program in bionanotechnology research. However, a major barrier to this research field is the inability to measure the nanostructures (i.e., in most research studies, it is extremely difficult to quantitate nanostructures of different surface coatings). This is the reason that most research in this area are only qualitative. Without the ability to quatitate, it is difficult to fully characterize the nanostructures (results can be incorrectly interpreted) in biological experiments. In order to advance this field of research, we aim to develop novel methods to quantitate colloidal nanostructures in biological environments. We aim to combine a molecular engineering approach called phage screening to identify molecules that can recognize the nanostructures (based on their coating chemistry) and to use these molecules in sandwich immunoassays (which is a commonly-used molecular biology technique for measuring biomolecule concentrations). The success of this project would remove a major barrier for advancing nanotechnology research.