Nanofabrication for Investigations in Cellular and Molecular Biology
Many functional complexes in biology rely in fundamental ways on multiple weak binding interactions with nanometer-scale spatial order. The combined strength of multiple weak interactions can be orders of magnitude larger than that of the individual interactions, forming the basis for the extraordinary specificity of many biochemical systems. Understanding the details of the relationship between spatial order and biochemical function will yield enormous insight into the fundamental workings of these systems. Until now, it has been exceedingly difficult to study this relationship, largely because the size scales involved are those of biomolecules, i.e. from a few to tens of nanometers. Because of continuing progress in solid-state nanofabrication technology, it is now possible to fabricate structures in precisely this size range. It is the objective of the project described below to implement a system that mimics biological spatial order by using nanofabricated structures to provide multiple binding sites at nanometer-scale separations. The nanostructures will be organized into hierarchical arrays in which structural parameters (spacing, etc.) are systematically varied on the micron scale. These arrays will be used to probe the spatial distributions of binding sites in biologically important molecules, to serve as templates for the seeding of protein crystals, and to study the effects of spatial organization on motor proteins.
