Abstract
One of the recent and appealing avenues to confer a new functional essence to nanomaterials is represented by the idea of merging nanotechnology and biology, resulting in the so-called nano-biotechnology. Decorating judiciously nanomaterials with biomolecules enable to improve the biocompatibility, and the new functionality (i.e. chemical reactivity and thus possible further material functionalisation) may lead to biohybrids with peculiar properties exploitable for targeted applications in biotechnology (biosensing and bioimaging, gene and drug delivery, cancertherapy, and tissue engineering). Inspired by the features offered by this discipline, the aim of thisdoctoral work was to chemically modify surfaces with biomolecules, through supramolecular approaches, with the objective of imparting functionality to the tailored systems. Before entering into the core of the projects pursued during this doctoral formation, in Chapter 1 a brief insight into nanotechnology has been given, along with a short description of the structural aspects of oligonucleotides and peptides, and of their potential use in nanotechnology, through a display of literature examples. This section served as introductory platform for the three projects developed in the course of this doctoral thesis and presented herein.
| Date of Award | 24 Jun 2015 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Davide BONIFAZI (Supervisor), Daniel Vercauteren (President), Stephane Vincent (Jury), Paolo Tecilla (Jury), Solange Lavielle (Jury) & Mathieu Surin (Jury) |