Nanofluidics, Nanopores, and Nanomaterials for Understanding Biology

Dear Colleagues,

Owing to vast advancements in the nanotechnology field, we see remarkable developments in science aiming to address a wide range of bioengineering challenges. This ranges from the design of highly functional nanomaterials and testing new detection strategies using nanostructures to optimizing drug delivery nano-systems for precision medicine. Nanofluidics and nanopores utilizing resistive pulse sensing and/or fluorescence detection attract interest for the sensing and analysis of single molecules. These transducers can identify the sequence or structural features of a single molecule, quantity them, identify interactions with other molecules, and measure single molecule reaction kinetics. Such a sensing mode provides immense advantages over an ensemble-average assessment. Single molecules can be evaluated without bulk interference, allowing for real time measurement in a label-free manner using electronic readouts.

We invite contributions to this Special Issue of Cells titled "Nanofluidics, Nanopores, and Nanomaterials for Understanding Biology". This issue seeks to present a wide variety of topics highlighting the advantages of “nanoscale” in deciphering and answering questions related to biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, and biotechnology. Research manuscripts, opinions, and review articles may describe approaches for accomplishing surface modifications of nanomaterials, aspects of drug delivery, and engineering materials for molecular identification and characterization. Of particular interest are papers on how nanofluidics and nanopores can execute the specificity, selectivity, and biocompatibility necessary for improvements in signal-to-noise ratios. The submission of studies describing nanomaterial advantages for the identification of cellular phenotypes based on nucleic acid or protein sequencing, peptide characterization, quests for biomarkers and genetic variants, and the recognition of pathogen types using biological and solid-state nanostructures is encouraged.

Dr. Malgorzata A. Witek
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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