Abstract

Pharma & Clinical Pharmacy Congress 2016: Nanotechnology and Microfluidics for Biomedical Application

Author(s): Hongbo Zhang

International Conference on Statement Nanobiotechnology is a novel discipline that indicate the merger of biological and nanotechnology. It is a multidisciplinary subject, which interplay between physics, materials science, synthetic organic chemistry, engineering and biology. To efficiently diagnostic and treat diseases, the understanding of detail mechanism of disease occur would be critical. The qualitative and quantitative analysis at the molecular scope in real time is highly demanded but very challenging to achieve. Nanobiotechnology is to solve the fascinating problems offered by biology through designing and synthesizing of specific nanomaterials and utilize specific techniques. DNA nanotechnology is one important example of nanobiotechnology. As the central genetic molecule in biological systems, DNA possesses many exceptional properties, including its biological function, biocompatibility, molecular recognition ability, and nanoscale controllability. These unique attributes enabled the creation of functional DNA nanostructures, which act as natural bridge between nanotechnology and biotechnology, leading to far-ranging real-world applications. Microfluidic technology is revolutionary for high throughput diagnostics and other biological applications. In Prof. David A. Weitz’s group in Harvard University (http://weitzlab.seas. harvard.edu/), they have developed the droplet based microfluidic techniques for Single Cell RNA-Sequencing using DNA Barcode Beads; Single-cell Polymerase Chain Reaction for metagenomic studies and Sepsis Diagnosis; Single-cell analysis, screening and sorting; high-throughput culturing of single cells for selection based on extracellular metabolite production or consumption and etc. In addition, microfluidic technology is also powerful in nano/micro-fabrications. All kinds of monodisperse nano/micro-particles can be fabricated in microfluidic channels at high efficiency. Herein, I am planning to utilize different nanobiotechnology tools, especially DNA nanotechnology and microfluidic techniques to investigate the realworld fascinating problems in biology, to understand the detail mechanism of cell signaling, gene expression and to develop nanomachines for disease diagnostics and treatments.