Development of mesoporous thin film for capture-detection of prion protein

Adequate methods to detect and screen prion related diseases could prevent the mass killing of animals while simultaneously ensuring the safety of animal-based food products. Since identification and quantification of proteins and their folding mechanism are very important in disease diagnosis, nanotechnology based approaches could perhaps be used to develop detection assays that are very sensitive with ability to differentiate between structural elements Aim of this project is to find out silica and titania mesoporous functionalized mesostructured materials which will be subject to an optimization process, consisting in selecting both the most efficient functionalization "ligands" (among many now available) and the most suitable nanostructured materials. Therefore, one of most important objective will be focalized on preparation of functionalized mesoporous materials with specific ligand such as antibody, aptamer (oligonucleic acid or peptide molecules that bind a specific target molecule). Controlling of chemical and processing variables will permit the easy creation and reproduction of an amazing library of functional-pore arrays in which tailored diffusion of substrates is possible.