Development of photonic sensing effects at the solid surface/bionanocomposite interface for detection and control of biogenic interactions

The object of the project proposal is a phospholipid bionanocomposite, as a model of a cellular biomembrane. There is still no unambiguously accepted and used model for the analysis of this selective biostructure providing transport of substances. We assume the arrangement of lipids, considered as monomers, analogous to liquid crystal molecules, in a bilayer, which allows us to assume the bilayer membrane structure as planar, adaptable to the surfaces of glass cells in which the studied biomaterials are placed. This characteristic of the bilayer membrane allows us to apply modern physical methods, such as optical polarization microtexture and surface structure methods, including surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and electromagnetic echo effect (EMEE). The analysis of the planar bilayer membrane structure/solid surface interface allows us to understand the processes at the hard-to-probe bilayer structure/cytoplasm interface in the living cell and the related trans-membrane transfer process of nanoparticles (NPs), including biomedical and pharmaceutical , having a biogenic impact on biosystems. Of particular importance in this sense are the bionanocomposites obtained by us, in which the bilayer membrane is a matrix into which we introduce NPs, such as the functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), the selection of which allows us to detect difficult-to-detect physicochemical, electro-optical (EO) and thermodynamic changes in the bionanocomposite by converting physical or chemical quantities into measurable electrical or optical signals - a key property of the sensor platform. These bionanocomposite-based nanosensor properties can find unique applications in ecology and biomedicine for the detection of biological and chemical substances as well as various pollutants introduced from the environment. The obtained results are expected to contribute to the improvement of the quality of life, as well as to the handling of bio and eco challenges and crises.