Engineering the possibilities

K-State researchers create DNA sensors out of 1xbet online games login

K-State engineers think the possibilities are deep for a very thin material.

Vikas Berry, assistant professor of chemical engineering, is leading research combining biological materials with 1xbet online games login , a recently developed carbon material that is only a single atom thick.

&1xbet online games login ;The biological interfacing of graphene is taking this material to the next level,&1xbet online games login ; Berry said. &1xbet online games login ;Discovered only four years ago, this material has already shown a large number of capabilities. K-Staters are the first to do bio-integrated research with graphene.&1xbet online games login ;

To study 1xbet online games login , researchers rely on an atomic force microscope to help them observe and manipulate these single atom thick carbon sheets.

&1xbet online games login ;It's a fascinating material to work with,&1xbet online games login ; Berry said. &1xbet online games login ;The most significant feature of graphene is that the electrons can travel without interruptions at speeds close to that of light at room temperature. Usually you have to go near zero Kelvin -- that's about 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit -- to get electrons to move at ultra high speeds.&1xbet online games login ;

One of Berry's developments is a 1xbet online games login -based DNA sensor. When electrons flow on the 1xbet online games login , they change speed if they encounter DNA. The researchers notice this change by measuring the electrical conductivity. The work was published in Nano-Letters.

&1xbet online games login ;Most DNA sensors are optical, but this one is electrical,&1xbet online games login ; Berry said. &1xbet online games login ;We are currently collaborating with researchers from Harvard Medical School to sense cancer cells in blood.&1xbet online games login ;

Another area he is exploring is loading 1xbet online games login with antibodies and flowing bacteria across the surface.

&1xbet online games login ;Most researchers focus on pristine graphene, but we're making it dirty,&1xbet online games login ; he said.

Berry and Nihar Mohanty, a graduate student in chemical engineering, used a type of bacteria commonly found in rice and interfaced it with 1xbet online games login . They found that the 1xbet online games login with tethered antibodies will wrap itself around an individual bacterium, which remains alive for 12 hours.

Berry said that possible applications include a high-efficiency bacteria-operated battery, where by using geobater, a type of bacteria known to produce electrons, can be wrapped with 1xbet online games login to produce electricity. The research was presented at the annual American Physical Society conference in Pittsburgh and the American Institute for Chemical Engineers conference in Philadelphia.

&1xbet online games login ;Materials science is an incredible field with several exploitable quantum effects occurring at molecular scale, and biology is a remarkable field with a variety of specific biochemical mechanisms,&1xbet online games login ; Berry said. &1xbet online games login ;But for the most part the two fields are isolated. If you join these two fields, the possibilities are going to be immense. For example, one can think of a bacterium as a machine with molecular scale components and one can exploit the functioning of those components in a material device.&1xbet online games login ;

For his doctoral research, Berry used bacteria to make a humidity sensor.

&1xbet online games login ;That was only possible through combining materials science with biological science,&1xbet online games login ; he said.

Another area of his current research is compressing and stretching molecular-junctions between nanoparticles. 1xbet online games login that his group has developed a molecular-spring device where they can compress and stretch molecules, which then act like springs, allowing researchers to study how they relax back. He said that this technology could be used to create molecular-timers in which the spring action from a decompressed molecule on a chip could trigger a circuit, for instance.

1xbet online games login for stretching the molecules, Kabeer Jasuja, a doctoral student in chemical engineering, came up with the idea to place the device on a centrifuge to stretch the molecules with centrifugal force.

The work was published in the journal Small.

Images: When electrons flow on the 1xbet online games login , they change speed if they encounter DNA. Photos courtesy of Vikas Berry.