Metal nanoparticles exhibit interesting chemical, electronic as well as optical properties and show a great potential for novel biomedical applications both in diagnostics as well as in targeted therapy.

We address hot issues of todays biomedical applications: decentralized and on-site-diagnostics (aiming at point-of-care approaches) but also miniaturized (and thereby potentially highly parallel) bioanalytics, also particle-mediated highly-localized sensing as well as manipulation of cells and molecules.

For bioanalytics, metal nanoparticles were bioconjugated in order to achieve specific molecular binding. DNA-chip techniques are demonstrated which use the particles as seed in a metal deposition process, inducing the bridging of an electrode gap by a growing metal layer that can be detected by electrical means [1,2]. Other bioanalytical particle applications are based on the plasmonic properties of the particles, which can be measured by microspectroscopy and which are sensitive to molecular binding, even on a single nanoparticle level [3]. 

On the therapy side, we demonstrate the sub-wavelength precision of laser-based manipulation of cells, metaphase chromosomes [4] and DNA-molecules [5].

Dr. Wolfgang Fritzsche, Head of Nanobiophotonics, Institute of Photonic Technology in Germany will give the talk on February 28 at 14:30 – 15:30 at NANOTEC, Thailand Science Park. Registration is free and open to all researchers.