The ability to simultaneously deliver and analyse individual molecules under label-free conditions is one of the ultimate goals in nanotechnology and can open up avenues for the quantitative analysis of biological, chemical and physical phenomena on an individual non‐statistical basis. While the field of single-molecule detection is thriving, there is universal lack of methods that allow for controlled delivery of individual molecules and label-free single-molecule detection at the same time. A relatively new class of label-free bio-sensors is nanopores, which have been developed to efficiently detect and analyse single molecules (such as DNA, RNA and proteins) under physiologically relevant conditions with high signal-to-noise ratio. Until now nanopores have been mainly used as a high sensitivity analytical tool that has not been used for the controllable delivery of biomolecular species, in part due to the stochastic (random) nature of the transport of analyte through the nanopore.
This talk will address some of the limitations above and the capabilities for controllable single-molecule delivery and label-free detection with a nanopore. We show that the delivery and detection of single molecules can be a controllable process, enabling on-demand delivery with precision of one molecule at a time.1 These findings open the door to using nanopores as a single molecule delivery tool for a broad range of applications, e.g. gene regulation, infection, and single-molecule PCR, to name a few.
In addition, I will present nanoscale sensors and platforms that we have recently developed. Examples include tunnelling nanopore platforms for high-resolution DNA fragment sizing and sequencing applications2, methods for high precision nanoelectrode/ nanopore fabrication2,3, molecular trap architectures4, aptamer-functionalised gold nanoparticles sensors5 and single molecule detectors based ionic field effect transistors.
[1] ACS Nano 2015, 9 (4), 3587-3595
[2] Nano Letters 2011, 11 (1), 279-285
[3] ACS Nano 2014, 8 (2), 1940-1948
[4] Nature Communications 2016, 7, 10217
[5] Chemical Science, 2017, 8, 3905–3912