Quantitative Characterization of Nano Diamonds Modified by Proteins

Undergraduate #121
Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Nanoscience

Kaiemah Mond - Delaware State University
Co-Author(s): Yuri Markushin, Department of Physics and Engineering, OSCAR Center, OSCAR Summer Research Program, Delaware State University

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Nano Diamonds are diamonds with a size below 100 nanometers. They can be produced by impact event such as a controlled explosion in a laboratory or during meteoric impacts in nature. A single imperfection can give a Nano Diamond an isolated color center, which let it function as single, trapped atom, relative to the defect size. Nano Diamonds have huge surface areas that allow them to bond with a variety of other materials. Their non-toxicity means that Nano Diamonds are well suited for biomedical application. The purpose of this project is to develop a quantitative characterization method of Nano Diamonds modified by proteins for developing of the essay for detection of various diseases. In this study, it is hypothesized that the protein-modification level of the Nano Diamonds can be estimated by the comparison of the absorbance or fluorescence levels of the protein-modified Nano-Diamonds with those of the plain Nano Diamonds and of the protein itself. To achieve the goal we took the series of dilutions of the bovine serum albumin Alexa Fluor 488 conjugate and the protein-modified Nano Diamonds in Phosphate Buffered Saline to measure the absorbance by using the Nano-Drop spectrometer. Future studies will focus on applying this quantitative characterization absorbance based method to develop more sensitive bioassay for detection of various diseases.

Funder Acknowledgement(s): This study was supported in part by OSCAR Program at Delaware State University funded by NSF CREST/CREOSA Grant number: HRD-1242067 Department: OSCAR Center.

Faculty Advisor: Yuri Markushin, ymarkushin@desu.edu

Role: Worked with my advisor Dr. Markushin a small portion but I did 90% of it by my self.