CAREER: Self-Signaling and Signal Amplifying Conjugated Polymer Biosensors and Sensor Arrays

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

This Career award by the Biomaterials program in the Division of Materials Research to University of Michigan is to study the molecular design principles of bio-conjugated polymer hybrid materials in order to develop self-signaling and signal amplifying bio-microarrays based on nucleic acids/proteins-conjugated polymers. Biological molecules such as nucleic acids and proteins have unique specificity in recognition. But fast and reliable detection of these diagnostically important biological molecules remains a significant challenge especially given the difficulty in devising an effective label-free and sensitive detection strategy. On the other hand, conjugated polymers (CPs) can respond very sensitively to a variety of environmental stimuli via changes to their physical properties, e.g. changes in color and fluorescent emission. Earlier studies have expended signal amplifying property of synthetic CPs for high sensitivity in many molecular sensor designs. To develop highly sensitive and highly selective biosensors for these biomolecules, this award will devise bio-conjugated polymer hybrid materials where biological materials are the recognition receptor and CPs are the reporters generating a sensory signal. These studies will address the most important design principle to combine a biological receptor and a conjugated polymer so that a selective recognition event at the receptor site can produce a sensitive, amplified signal from the conjugated polymer reporter. The most valuable knowledge that would come out of these studies will be molecular design principles of conjugated polymers and bio-conjugation and an assembly/fabrication strategy for the development of self-signaling and signal amplifying biosensor arrays. The relationship between the chemical structure of a conjugated polymer and its assembly with biological receptors and their effects on sensor sensitivity and selectivity will be systematically investigated to reveal the necessary design principles. The design considerations of each component to allow for properties necessary to the molecular sensor will provide insight in molecular biosensor design. The proposed studies will promote molecular-level understanding in students at various levels on the relationship between organic/polymeric molecular design and the properties of such materials through incorporating results from the proposed research into ongoing curriculum and outreach program development. The main components of the proposed research cover broad disciplines of science including molecular design, chemical synthesis, polymer synthesis, molecular self-assembly, device fabrication, and performance characterization. These multidisciplinary components will be integrated into a larger educational effort to (1) offer engineering students a solid foundation of molecular design principles, structure-property relationships, synthetic methodology, and the assembly of organic and polymeric materials, (2) promote engineering students' abilities to devise advanced novel soft materials and associated devices, (3) prepare engineering students to conduct multidisciplinary research involving materials and biology. Students will learn how to consider essential properties of molecular biosensors and integrate each component into sensor design.