The Nanobiotechnology (Nano-Bio Energy Conversions and Vectorisation) Laboratory is led by Professor Igor Nabiev, assisted by Dr. Alyona Sukhanova. The research programme for the Nanobiotechnology Laboratory has been divided into three main themes as described below.

Theme 1: Energy transfer processes in hybrid materials for chemical and biological fuel production, biophotonic and photovoltaic applications.

• Nanocrystals-bacteriorhodopsin hybrid materials.
• Hybrid materials made from the nanocrystals and photosynthetic reaction centres of plants and bacteria.

Theme 1 is focused on the development of new hybrid materials which are based on the resonance energy transfer between semiconductor, metal of magnetic nanocrystals and photosensitive or hem-containing proteins. Two types of hybrid materials under development involve the complexes of fluorescent semiconductor nanocrystals quantum dots (QDs) and integral membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin or photoreactions centres. Both materials are based on the principle of more efficient exploitation of the biological function of the aforementioned proteins using additional energy transfer from QDs. Bacteriorhodopsin is a light dependent protein with photovoltaic properties which works as a proton pump, and its function can be modulated by the QDs. Photosynthetic reaction centres use light to produce chemical fuel and their turnover can be also improved by the use of QDs. Ultimately the goal is to develop and to characterize in full new hybrid materials with desired optical switching, energy harvesting and photovoltaic properties as well as to engineer the hybrid devices able to be used for improved chemical and biological fuel production.

Theme 2: Biomedical diagnostics using the energy transfer processes

• Diagnostics of breast cancer using solid-state and liquid-state nanocrystal-based chips.
• Diagnostics of auto-immune diseases.

Theme 2 is focused on development and exploitation of functionalized and bioadapted hybrid materials involving fluorescent or magnetic nanocrystals tagged with the highly active and specific capture molecules. Such conjugates are able to detect specifically breast cancer biomarkers as well as to identify the presence of auto-antibodies in the assays for diagnostics of auto-immune diseases. Our advanced approach includes implementation of the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) detection schemes enabling to improve sensitivity and specificity of detection as well as the multiplexing capabilities of the assays.  

Theme 3: Ultrasensitive nanocrystal-based pathogen detection employing the energy transfer processes

• Nanolab-on-a-bead biodetecting system operating in the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) format.
• Nanolab-on-a-chip biodetecting system for bio-defence and struggle against bioterrorism.

Based on the same technology as Theme 2, the goal of Theme 3 is to develop new materials that can be introduced within the Lab-on-a-bead and lab-on-a-chip platforms in order to detect pathogens, and therefore can be used in the fight against bioterrorism. In this case the QDs conjugates with capture molecules or polymeric beads optically encoded with the nanocrystals and tagged with the capture molecules, are serving as the “nanolabs” in order to catch and recognize pathogens’ molecular signatures and to transfer information to the microarrays or flow cytometer read-out systems.