|
Award Abstract #0102889
NER: Nanoengineered Pipettes for Patch Clamp Measurements
| NSF Org: |
CBET
Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems
|
|
|
| Initial Amendment Date: |
June 29, 2001 |
|
| Latest Amendment Date: |
June 29, 2001 |
|
| Award Number: |
0102889 |
|
| Award Instrument: |
Standard Grant |
|
| Program Manager: |
Cyrus K. Aidun
CBET Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems
ENG Directorate for Engineering
|
|
| Start Date: |
July 1, 2001 |
|
| Expires: |
June 30, 2002 (Estimated) |
|
| Awarded Amount to Date: |
$90642 |
|
| Investigator(s): |
Richard Zare zare@stanford.edu (Principal Investigator)
|
|
| Sponsor: |
Stanford University
340 Panama Street
STANFORD, CA 94305 650/723-2300
|
|
| NSF Program(s): |
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING,
PARTICULATE &MULTIPHASE PROCES
|
|
| Field Application(s): |
0308000 Industrial Technology
|
|
| Program Reference Code(s): |
OTHR, 1676, 0000
|
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
5345, 1415
|
ABSTRACT
Abstract
CTS-0102889
Richard Zare, Stanford University
The fundamental processes of biology occur on the nanoscale. Proteins are on the order of few nanometers; the organelles essential to cellular function are tens or hundreds of nanometers. Direct investigation of these structures has been limited by the difficulty of making tools of compatible size. A novel tool is proposed that may enable the manipulation and investigation of individual nanoscale biological objects with control and flexibility impossible with existing tools. A nanoengineering process that produces pipettes especially has been designed for the robust manipulation of small biological objects, such as vesicles. Unlike the conventional pipettes routinely used in electrophysiology, the proposed pipettes have a concave seating surface at their tips. This seating surface provides a large contact area between the pipette and the object being held, resulting in excellent stability and control. In addition, the size of the seating surface can be tailored to hold objects of varying sizes, from tens of microns to hundreds of nanometers. The lower size limit is compatible with a wide range of subcellular organelles.
A further extension of our pipettes is as delivery devices. It is proposed to combine electrophysiological and chemical composition analyses by coupling patch clamp and capillary electrophoresis with laser induced fluorescence. This novel coupling of analysis techniques will enable the further elucidation of vesicle-to-vesicle differences by combining information about morphology, electrophysiology, and chemical composition. The significance of biological heterogeneity is only beginning to be explored. The tools we propose may afford new insights on this intriguing biological problem.
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
|
