This project is funded by the Chemical Measurement and Imaging (CMI) program of the Division of Chemistry at the National Science Foundation. Professor Hanbin Mao of Kent State University is developing new biosensing strategies that have high sensitivity to detect multiple chemical or biological targets simultaneously. Broader impacts are addressed through the development of integrated research-education projects to train high-school and college students. Many parts of research plans are modularly designed in to accommodate the tight schedules of high school and college students. This facilitates the participation of these students into the STEM fields.
This project employs individual macromolecules, such as DNA, as platforms for analyte sensing. Upon the binding of an analyte, the macromolecule changes its conformation, which is accompanied by a variation in mechanical properties, such as tension, due to the mechanochemical coupling. Using laser tweezers, the change in the mechanical property is monitored in real time, accomplishing the sensing without extra infrastructure used in a separate signal transduction unit. Since single-molecule templates are used, detection of individual molecules is the result. This represents the utmost sensitivity for biosensing. Compared to other single-molecule detection schemes such as fluorescence, the force signal employed in a mechanochemical sensor suffers little from environmental noise. In addition, the measurement of force does not require direct light excitation, which avoids photo-damage to the sensing template. All these facts render strong reliability and high sensitivity for this new sensing strategy.
