Bioinspired Nanomaterials for Biomedical Diagnostics and Treatment Towards Personalized Nanomedicine

Abstract

Inspired by Natural biomineralization processes, our research focuses on the rational design of peptide- and nucleic acid-based biomolecular templates for the synthesis of multifunctional metallic and carbon-based nanomaterials with tunable optical properties and biofunctionalities for sensing, imaging, drug/gene delivery and therapy. Such bio-hybrid nanomaterials exhibit synergistic combination of biological functions and chemical properties resulting from the hard nanocore and soft biomolecular shell. For example, we have developed a series of metallic nanobiosensors with target specific bio-shell to detect wide range of analytes in solution from small molecule drugs, protein biomarkers to cancer and bacteria cells [1-4]. Recently, we have exploited the use of designer DNA and peptide templates to synthesize a palette of photoluminescent metal nanoclusters (NCs < 2nm in core size) which could be used as multicolour probes for bioimaging, image-guided photodynamic therapy and multiplexed sensing [5-7]. We also take this biomimetic approach to ‘turn’ the native protein into bioactive fluorescent nanosensor for rapid drug screening without tedious genetic engineering. To enable greener synthesis with good biocompatibility and sustainability, pure organic resources and biomass wastes were utilized to synthesize carbon dots from biomolecules (biodots) and metal-enhanced fluorescent nanodots with tailored functionalities for a range of biomedical applications [8-12]. For instance, bioinspired antimicrobial biodots has been successfully developed for ultrasensitive pathogen detection (1 cfu/ml in < 0.5 hour) as well as to combat broad spectrum multi-drug resistant bacteria [11]. With further understanding in biotemplates design, we expect a far more extensive applications of bioinspired hybrid nanomaterials for the advanced biomedical diagnostic and treatment towards personalized nanomedicine in future.