Green technology breakthroughs represent a new biological paradigm in electrical engineering
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced the invention of nanowires that are 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. The nanowires can be grown cheaply by common bacteria and can be tuned to “smell” a variety of chemical tracers, including those released by people suffering from disease. A wide range of medical conditions, including asthma and kidney disease. Thousands of these specially-tuned wires, each sniffing out a different chemical, can be layered into miniature wearable sensors, setting a precedent for healthcare providers to monitor potential health complications. Allows for tools without Because these wires are grown by bacteria, they are organic, biodegradable, and much more environmentally friendly than inorganic nanowires.
Senior authors Derek Lovley, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology at UMass Amherst, and Jun, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst’s School of Engineering, were involved in making these breakthroughs detailed in the Biosensors and Bioelectrics journal. Yao needed to make sure that: No further than my nose.
“The human nose has hundreds of receptors, each sensitive to one specific molecule,” says Yao. “They are much more sensitive and efficient than any mechanical or chemical device we could design. “
In other words, the team wondered if they could work with nature to sniff out disease.
The answer begins with a bacterium known as Geobacter sulfur reduction. Lovry and Yao had previously used this bacterium to create a biofilm that could continuously generate electricity from sweat for long periods of time. G. sulfurreducens have an amazing natural ability to grow small conducting nanowires.
However, G. sulphurreducens is a fastidious bacterium and requires specific conditions for growth, making large-scale use difficult. “What we’ve done is that he took a ‘nanowire gene’ called pyrin from G. sulfareducens and spliced it into the DNA of E. coli, one of the most widespread bacteria in the world. That’s it,” says Lovry.
Once the pyrin gene was removed from G. sulfurreducens, Lovley, Yao and team modified it to contain a specific peptide known as DLESFL that is highly sensitive to ammonia. They then spliced the modified pilin gene into E. coli DNA, and the engineered bacteria sprouted tiny nanowires furred with ammonia-sensing peptides. The team then took these ammonia-sensitive nanowires and incorporated them into sensors.
“We genetically modified the nanowires to make them 100 times more reactive to ammonia than they were,” says Yassir Lekbach, co-lead author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow in microbiology at UMass Amherst. says. “Microbial-produced nanowires perform much better as sensors than previously described sensors fabricated with conventional silicon or metal nanowires.”
And these new sensors don’t have to be limited to just ammonia and kidney disease. I’m here. Therefore, as tracer molecules released by the body and specific to particular diseases are identified, creating sensors incorporating nanowires that smell hundreds of different chemicals to monitor all kinds of health conditions. I can. ”
A new paradigm in electrical engineering
Traditional nanowires made of silicon or carbon fiber are highly toxic, carbon nanotubes themselves are carcinogenic, and end up in non-biodegradable e-waste. These raw materials not only require enormous amounts of energy and chemical inputs to harvest and process, but can also have a significant impact on the environment. But Lovley and Yao’s nanowires are much more sustainable because they are grown from common bacteria.
“One of the most exciting things about this line of research is that it pushes electrical engineering in a fundamentally new direction,” says Yao. Instead of wires made from scarce raw materials that don’t biodegrade, the beauty of these protein nanowires is that they use the genetic engineering of life to create stable, versatile, low-impact, and cost-effective It is possible to build a high platform. ”
Original: Researchers invent ‘electronic nose’ using microbial nanowires to revolutionize health monitoring
Than: University of Massachusetts
