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Abstract:
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Nanotechnology has the potential to contact and impact the biological interactions at the most basic chemical and physical levels . New approaches to nanodevices allow high sensitivity and specificity with low sample requirement . Such devices are potential candidates for early disease detection at molecular levels and have important implications in associated therapeutics .This research work focuses on two different areas : developing devices for DNA detection , protein enrichment and exploring material properties to fabricate microscale /nanoscale structures . In one approach , hairpin probe DNA was used to detect fmol of ss -DNA from k -ras oncogene . In another approach , nanochannel based device was developed to selectively increase the concentration of one protein from a mixture of proteins taking advantage of antigen -antibody interactions in nanochannels . The phenomenon was demonstrated with selective separation of BSA and human hemoglobin . Further , effect of fluorescence on fluid flow through channels was studied . Towards biocompatible membranes , a rapid , simple and inexpensive approach to fabricate microchannels from 100 -700 micron was developed . These channels were made in PDMS using simple chemistry and materials like nanoparticles , polyurethane and acetone , at various curing temperatures . |