Merging Biological Self‐Assembly with Synthetic Chemical Tailoring: The Potential for 3‐D Genetically Engineered Micro/Nano‐Devices (3‐D GEMS)

Abstract

Appreciable global efforts are underway to develop processes for fabricating three-dimensional (3-D) nanostructured assemblies for advanced devices. Widespread commercialization of such devices will require: (i) precise 3-D fabrication of chemically tailored structures on a fine scale and (ii) mass production of such structures on a large scale. These often-conflicting demands can be addressed with a revolutionary new paradigm that couples biological self-assembly with synthetic chemistry: Bioclastic and Shape-preserving Inorganic Conversion (BaSIC). Nature provides numerous examples of microorganisms that assemble biominerals into intricate 3-D structures. Among the most spectacular of these microorganisms are diatoms (unicellular algae). Each of the tens of thousands of diatom species assembles silica nanoparticles into a microshell with a distinct 3-D shape and pattern of fine (nanoscale) features. The repeated doubling associated with biological reproduction enables enormous numbers of such 3-D microshells to be generated (e.g., only 40 reproduction cycles can yield 41 trillion 3-D replicas!). Such genetic precision and massive parallelism are highly attractive for device manufacturing. However, the natural chemistries assembled by diatoms (and other microorganisms) are rather limited. With BaSIC processes, biogenic assemblies can be converted into a wide variety of new functional chemistries, while preserving the 3-D morphologies. Ongoing advances in genetic engineering promise to yield microorganisms tailored to assemble nanoparticle structures with device-specific shapes. Large-scale culturing of such genetically tailored microorganisms, coupled with shape-preserving chemical conversion (via BaSIC processes), would then provide low-cost 3-D Genetically Engineered Micro/nano-devices (3-D GEMs).

Biosilica – Nanocomposites – Nanobiomaterials for Biomedical Engineering and Sensing Applications

“…To this, the biosilicification process can produce nanostructured materials for a variety of nanotechnological applications. Biosilicification allows for the development of highly controlled nanopatterns that can be produced efficiently in large quantities and at low cost [49,50]. Applications involving nanofabricated biosilica include selective separation [51], biosensors, microelectromechanical systems [52], and others [49].…”

The increased compression strength of an epoxy resin with the addition of heat-treated natural nano-structured diatom frustules

“…The diatomite, following a milling and in some cases a calcination process, is primarily used as filtering material and secondarily as filler for plastics and insulating material. As naturally forming material, the frustules have many potentials for diverse engineering applications including the templates or scaffolds for three-dimensional complex micro-scale polymeric, metallic and ceramic structures, 5,7–9 gas-selective metal film membranes and pin-point drug delivery (magnetized frustules). 10 The mechanical properties of individual diatom frustules have taken considerably interests in recent years and have shown to depend on the locations of measurements, resulting from the different stages of bio-mineralization process.…”