It is well known that biological materials and systems can perform sensing and actuation functions in a wide range of levels from individual cells to tissues, organisms, and groups of animals. Understanding the mechanisms of such functions in the natural world will enable us to build extremely powerful and versatile engineered systems. This EAGER research proposal aims to understand such sensing mechanisms that govern the interactions between living cells and carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
Whether and how living cells could sense and thus respond to the geometrical features at the nanoscale by using a recently discover carbon nanocoils (CNCs) will be examines. The proposed research is a collaborative component with Professor Shuo Hang Chang at National Taiwan University. It is a novel approach to study the biosensing and actuation mechanisms which represents the first step to enable the development of new nano-materials and sensing strategies. It is anticipated that opportunities to tailor material properties at the nanoscale will emerge and applications in bio- and health- or environmentally related areas such as tisue engineering will become possible.
