Novel ultrathin film coatings for high throughput screening systems
       The potential for mass production of biotechnology products using a nanoengineering approach called Layer-by-layer (LbL) nanoassembly will be attacked. The findings will facilitate transfer of university technology to the private sector by evaluating fabrication and characterization methods for a small number of focused products. In addition, the project will also explore longer-term opportunities for cost-effective custom product offerings by considering additional substrate materials, nanofilm components, and spatial arrangements (e.g. spot arrays). The versatile LbL approach has potential to solve technical problems in high throughput screening (HTS), as it provides a means to apply ultrafilm coatings with defined chemical and physical properties to commonly-used glass and plastic substrates. Despite tremendous research work on the LbL technique, however, systematic characterization of the long-range uniformity of nanoassembled films and substrates with different physical and chemical traits has not been attempted. Therefore, the objective of this work will be to fabricate and fully characterize a series of prototype nanofilm products, which will be statistically compared to evaluate the LbL process when scaled up for production of HTS-relevant systems as well as integrate nanoengineered sensors in the HTS systems for sensing of oxygen, pH, glucose, and other ions. The rationale for this project stems directly from needs of the biotechnology industry related to the improvement or elaboration of new HTS systems. Well-controlled substrate (glass, plastic) surface properties are required for uniform deposition and adhesion of biomolecules and cells. Overcoming these needs represents a significant near-term opportunity to capture part of a large market that includes pharmaceutical companies and research institutions involved studies involving cell and molecular microarrays.
       Nanostructured scaffolds with biomimetic nanofilm surfaces for stem cell research:
       This project will pursue development of nanofilm scaffolds with manifold properties, which can eventually be combined to achieve functionality desired for specific applications. Soft-lthographic approach will be used for the fabrication of the scaffolds, while the final system will be defined via the deposition of multiple layers of self-assembled films with nanometer precision. The work will focus on fabrication, physical, chemical, and biological characterization, and comparison of nanostructured scaffolds to elucidate the key factors governing bio-material interactions at the nanoscale. The main outcome of these studies will be a set of fabrication processes, quantitative surface characterization protocols, and design criteria for engineering complex, dynamic cell scaffolds with applications in basic biology, bio-device interfacing, and tissue engineering. It is anticipated that the successful development of the proposed biomimetic systems will provide a general platform for studying biological processes, which will impact stem cell research, biomedical devices, and tissue engineering.