Biological Systems

The technologies created at the University of Wisconsin Center for NanoTechnology have wide-reaching applications in the biological sciences. We both collaborate with biological scientists and create the tools for them.

Etching nanometer-sized patterns into thin metals opens new door to the study of proteins and cells. For example, proteins placed in a thin gap can alter their normal alignment, enabling the formation of liquid crystals. As another example, cells also grow differently depending on their environment, and patterns at the nanometer scale may allow for easy study of a single layer of cells.

One of our collaborations is the study of how embryonic stem cells maintain their pluripotent state. Embryonic stem cells may represent the earliest germ cell precursors. And because the known machinery for germ cell specification is highly conserved among species, it is likely the essential genetic machinery that regulates the pluripotent state will also be highly conserved across even divergent vertebrates, such as humans, mice and zebrafish.

Our automated gene synthesizer promises huge advances in studying genes. Because it will be able to fit an entire transcriptome, including coding and non-coding RNA, the automated gene synthesizer will allow us to examine non-coding RNA, which has been implicated in maintaining the pluripotent state.

The applications of an automated gene synthesizer stretch beyond genes. We are developing the technology to synthesize proteins and detect SNPs in automated and high-throughput processes.

top