Multifunctional molecular structures for biotechnology and clinical diagnostics

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Gerhard Mohr
• Subject Area: Organic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: from 2004 to 2008
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5430298

The applicant's previous research has shown that it is possible to use reversible chemical reactions as a means to detect analytically relevant biomolecules. In the project, new absorbance and fluorescence based dyes will be developed that can perform reversible chemical reactions with specific functional groups of the analyte (e.g. hydroxyl groups of saccharides or antibiotics) causing the colour to change. Additionally, these dyes exhibit groups which allow polymerisation together with uncoloured monomers around selected analyte molecules. The fact that the dyes are capable of chemically interacting with the analyte allows to obtain three-dimensional self-assemblies during the polymerisation process. After releasing the analyte from the imprinted polymer, the resulting sensor material selectively recognises the analyte, and the reversible chemical reaction with the dye causes significant changes in absorbance or luminescence intensity. By using different analytes to imprint the polymer, materials with high selectivity for specific alcohols, saccharides, aroma substances or drugs will be obtained. The sensor layers and nanoparticles will be characterised in terms of selectivity, sensitivity, response, operational and shelf life and, subsequently will be evaluated for analytemonitoring in biotechnology and medical research. The research on the new sensor materials will give insight in the development of self-organising structures and allows to investigate chemical reactions in the nanometer scale.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants