Nanobiotechnology

Nanobiotechnology is a recently coined term describing the convergence of the two existing but distant worlds of engineering and molecular biology. Engineers have been working for the past three decades on shrinking dimensions of fabricated structures to enable faster and higher density electronic chips, which have reached feature sizes as small as 20 nm using deep UV-lithography. In parallel, molecular biologists have been operating for many years in the domain of molecular and cellular dimensions ranging from several nanometers (DNA molecules, viruses) to several micrometers (cells). It is believed that a combination of these disciplines will result in a new class of multifunctional devices and systems for biological and chemical analysis characterized by better sensitivity and specificity and higher rates of recognition compared with current solutions.

Current status

Nanobiotechnology is still at its early stages of development; however, the development is multi-directional and fast-paced. Universities are forming nanotechnology centers and the number of papers and patent applications in the area is rising quickly. The nanotechnology ‘tool-box’ is quickly being filled with nanotools, but realistically, some of these newly developed tools might not have viable applications and could end-up on the ‘technology shelf’ in the future. The flurry of new nano-based sensors, for example, looks at first glance to be appealing, but in many cases, the techniques for preparing these sensors are complex; the sensor performance might not be superior to existing methods relying on micro-approaches (as opposed to nano-approaches). Nevertheless, there are definite benefits emerging from these developments. Nanobiotechnology is interdisciplinary and brings together life scientists and engineers. This, in turn, fuels further growth of ideas, which would not occur without these inter-disciplinary interactions. Finally, many bets have been placed on the future importance of nanobiotechnology and nanobiotech start-ups, which constitute nearly 50% of the venture capital invested in nanotechnology.

Future trends

Nanobiotechnology is here to stay! We can expect that the current multi-directional and chaotic developments will gradually become more ordered and develop sharp focus as applications mature to produce useful and validated technologies. It is still not entirely clear whether nanobiotechnology will be the basis of the next technological revolution and, if this is indeed the case, what is a realistic timescale for this potentially industry-transforming event. There is little doubt that there is great optimism among scientists, politicians and policy makers who anticipate significant job creation associated with the growth of this new field. Nanobiotechnology will certainly provide opportunities for developing new materials and methods that will enhance our ability to develop faster, more reliable and more sensitive analytical systems. A gradual, rather than explosive incorporation of these new discoveries into molecular recognition is predicted. The progression of fabrication techniques driven by the semiconductor industry will allow realization of smaller and smaller structures, challenging researchers to provide new applications for those structures, which reach beyond electronic devices, for which they were initially made. QDs and gold nanoparticles are just two examples of this transfer of technology into molecular detection applications.

Finally, future applications of nanobiotechnology include development of in vivo sensors. Nano-sized devices are envisaged that could be ingested or injected into the body, where they could act as reporters of in vivo concentrations of key analytes. These devices would have a capability for sensing and transmitting data to an external data capture system. The constant vigilance of these devices would provide a real-time, 24/7 scrutiny of the state of a person’s health. The regulatory issues that will have to be addressed for such devices are as yet unknown; however, the basic technology that would underlie their development can already be discerned.

Abstract from article by Paolo Fortina, Larry J. Kricka, Saul Surrey and Piotr Grodzinski