Research

Industrial sites such as Samsung BioLogics and Celltrion are using large reactors with a capacity of tens of liters for biological conversion. Under these large-scale reactors, the success of the real-time monitoring using metal nanomaterials depends on overcoming several key challenges. First, the loss of metal nanomaterials must be avoided under the high shear stress caused by the impeller agitation. Moreover, gas bubbles should not come into contact with the nanomaterials. Lastly, the concentration of the dissolved molecules must be precisely translated from the complex optical signals induced by biological substances. To overcome this, we would like to fabricate a multi-functional fluidic device.

One of the important factors in biological conversion is selecting microbial cells that have high conversion efficiency. What is interesting is that even microbial cells with the same genotype have different phenotypes under their growth environment. Depending on these phenotypes, conversion efficiency also differs. However, microbial cells with the same genotype are very similar in morphology. Therefore, it is very difficult to distinguish them based on morphology. Instead, their surface properties show large differences according to their phenotype. In other words, we expect that microbial cells with different phenotypes will exhibit different optical signals. Based on this, we would like to select microbial cells with the same genotype but different phenotypes by measuring and analyzing these optical signals.

We are planning to transplant microbial cells with metal nanoparticles into living organisms and utilize them as a new energy source within cells. We would like to make non-pathogenic E. coli with metal nanomaterials encapsulated by liposomes. We expect that this complex can be well transplanted into live cells and improve the energy production capacity of the cell. It will be of great help in restoring the cells with reduced energy production function.

We would like to study is to develop biosensors that can detect and profile multiple proteins and drug. It is well known that proteins operate biological functions of living organisms. However, these proteins are about sub-10 nm in size, which is a very large substance compared to the small molecules. Therefore, it is very difficult to locate the proteins on the surface of metal nanomaterials with strong electromagnetic fields. To address this, a metal nanostructure in which proteins can freely diffuse is highly desirable. For this purpose, we would like to fabricate novel metal nanostructure for detection of multiple proteins and drug.