Research Stories

by Joe Kullman

So-called “smart” materials are the focus of much of today’s groundbreaking work in bioscience and bioengineering. It’s largely through the capabilities of nanotechnology that researchers are assembling tiny, intricate devices driven by a kind of built-in functional intelligence.

Such nanodevices are smart enough to perform myriad complex functions. They are helping scientists to advance medicine and medical science as well as to improve information technology. Other applications include enhancements to security and defense systems and optical imaging instruments, just to name a few.

Many of the possibilities are demonstrated in work led by biochemist and physicist Frederic Zenhausern. The scientist serves as director of the Center for Applied Nanobioscience at ASU’s Biodesign Institute. He also works as an investigator with the Molecular Diagnostics and Target Validation Division at the Translational Genomics Research Center (TGen) in downtown Phoenix. In his spare time he works as a professor in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.

Zenhausern and colleagues have lots of projects in the works. They are developing “smart” hybrid nanomaterials and molecular bioassays. A bioassay is a technique for biological examination or analysis. The molecular bioassays can target areas in the body to deliver biomolecules and medication. Hybrid nanomaterials can be used to monitor internal conditions. Physicians might use these processes as an effective diagnostic tool. They could lead to customized therapy or prevention methods that are based on a patient’s unique molecular profile.

This research is at the forefront of the promising arena of “personalized medicine.” Health care will be tailored to a patient’s individual genomic profile.

Researchers are fashioning a toolbox full of nanoscale instruments. Some will be used to observe the behaviors of enzymes and proteins at the molecular scale. Similar devices already enable the real-time imaging of chemical and biological processes. They work at scales so small that until now they have been all but undetectable.

The new nanotools and methods are broadly adaptable. They can become part of portable devices for improving the health monitoring and safety of military forces in the field. They can be used to detect biohazards and defend against bioterrorist attacks. They will also help improve battery power for cell phones and computers.

“We are combining genomics, microbiology, microfluidics and nanotechnology like never before. This is all made possible by being able to manipulate materials at molecular levels,” Zenhausern says.

Work at the nanoscale allows for investigating biological interactions within the body’s cells at molecular levels. Such work holds great promise for revealing fundamental knowledge of complex biological systems. But nanotechnology goes even further. It probes deep into things once almost unimaginable.

Today, scientists and engineers are developing “nanostructures” equipped with their own internal power sources and sensor and signaling controls. Even more amazing, they actually are getting nanomaterials to build themselves, or “self-assemble,” into useful devices, Zenhausern explains.

“This all is brought about by the change in the characteristics and behaviors of materials when you go down the nanometer scale” he continues. “At the nanoscale, materials combine in ways that give them abilities to do certain things.

Nanostructures have the ability to self-assemble. Nanomaterials are easily injected into the body. Doctors can program them to seek out and attach to clusters of specific kinds of cells. Once at a target destination, the nanomaterial can use natural biochemical processes, or be controlled remotely. Doctors can use them deliver medicine or transmit diagnostic information.

Nature often forms complex structures as tools to make things work to its benefit. A large part of nanobiotechnology research involves trying to figure out the ways that nature works.

Says Zenhausern, “We study natural processes. We use them as models for sparking molecular evolution. Those processes provide designs. We use them to build nanodevices that will do what we want them to do. The possibilities for new nanomaterials and devices might be beyond what we can imagine even now.”

Read more about nanotechnology research in "To the edge of infinity...and beyond!" and "Mind benders: Understanding matter on the atomic scale."