Researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile have created artificial biomembranes that mimic those found in living organisms. The biomembranes are made on silicon surfaces. The membrane was made without the use of solvents. The researchers evaporated chitosan onto the silicon, and then they evaporated a phospholipid molecule onto the chitosan-covered silicon substrate to form a bilayer. Synthetic membranes that mimic nature offer the possibility of containing membrane proteins — biological molecules that could be used for detecting toxins, diseases and many other biosensing applications. More work is needed to standardize the process by which proteins are to be inserted in the membranes, to define the mechanism by which an electrical signal would be transmitted when a protein binds its target, and to calibrate how that signal is detected by the underlying circuitry.
Source: EurekAlert
