Recent Progress in Biomolecule-Templated Nanomaterials

Yong      Zhou

doi:10.2174/157341306776875785

Abstract

Harnessing natures amazing ability to form self-assembled structures for nanotechnology applications is an attractive alternative to conventional fabrication methods. In recent years, benefiting from the specific properties of biomolecules like highly order architecture and precise molecular recognition, there is increasing interest in biomolecules for templating the growth of a large variety of inorganic nanomaterials. The present review briefly assesses recent progress in biomolecule-scaffolded nanomaterials. Several biomolecules and three main templating principles emerging in recent years have been outlined, namely, (1) crystalline surface layers (S-layers) of bacterial cells with a regular distribution of physicochemical affinity sites at the protein surface for the fabrication of highly oriented semiconductor and metal nanocluster arrays; (2) nanometer-sized ferritin and ferritin-like protein cages as the size-constrained reaction environments for encapsulation of inorganic materials; (3) various biomolecules of linear morphology such as viruses, microtubules and lipid nanotubes for creation of one-dimensional array of nanoparticles, and tubular and wire-like nanostructures. Biography: Yong Zhou studied chemistry and physics at the University of Science and Technology of China (USCT), received his Master degree in 1996, and finished his PhD thesis there in 2000. Afterwards he worked with Professor Yoshiki Chujo at the Kyoto University, Japan. He joined the group of Professor Markus Antonietti at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow from 2001 to 2003. After one-years staying at the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS), Japan, currently, he works as a Japan Science and Technology (JST) Fellow in Nanoarchitectonics Research Center (NARC) directed by Dr. Toshimi Shimizu, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. His current research focuses on synthesis, characterization and applications of lipid nanotube (LNT)-templated one-dimensional nanostructures as well as controlled release of drug and biomolecules with LNTs. Dr. Zhou has authored and co-authored over 40 international journal articles, two review papers and one invited book chapter. His works have been cited more than 400 times. He is a member of the editorial board for Current Nanoscience and also the guest editor of this hot topic issue.

Keywords: Nanomaterials, Biomolecules, Templates and Order Array

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