Contact: Robert Blick or Daniel van der Weide
To create and sustain a professional research and educational environment to promote both tool-building and product development in:
 | fabrication of biocircuitry (nanoimprinting, nanomolding of vitreous materials, dip-pen nanolithography for defining biocircuits, nanomachining of biocompatible materials) |
| surface functional engineering (characterization using optical, mechanical and electronic imaging, patterned segregation of lipid bilayers) |
| design and implementation of array techniques |
| combined optical and electronic readouts of biological activity |
| filtering and information processing of biological signals |
| bioengineering of single ion channel constructs |
The LMSE is a user facility that incorporates techniques and faculty from both the College of Engineering and science-related departments such as Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physiology and Medicine. We will help you to define the tools and techniques your experiment needs to make measurements at the nanometer scale, with an emphasis on cell and protein probing.
The long term goal of the LMSE is to develop the tools and methods for bridging the gap between semiconductor nanotechnology and Nature's techniques of self-assembly. The combination of the different fields of engineering will help build the basis for engineering in this century. This comprises advanced semiconductor technology, materials research, as well as chemical and biological techniques.
One of our current key topics is to combine microstructured glass chips with transport spectroscopy on single ion channels. Ion channels are formed by bundles of proteins regulating the flow of charge into and out of cells in every living organism. In engineering terms one may think of them as transistor-like elements gating the transport of charge and thus information exchange of cells. The on-chip technology we have developed allows us to monitor and manipulate single ion channel signals with un unprecedented speed and throughput. This is the starting point for understanding living matter interfaced to artificially structured materials.
This topic also shows where the future core of the project lies, namely at the boundaries between chemistry, physics, and biology. It is the challenge of the LMSE to bring together different disciplines for creating a unique environment in which new ideas can be prototyped and where the next generations of engineers learn to integrate the world on the molecular scale with devices.
Some related links:
nanomachines.com
nano.engr.wisc.edu