MULTI-PGNAS · Multifunctional Photothermal Gold Nanoarrays for Cellular Manipulation

Transporting, organizing, attaching, guiding, releasing entities of various dimensions over different scales remain central to the development of high throughput biological devices able to conduct millions of tests in a short period of time. The proposed project intends to develop a new generation of substrates for cell manipulation based on photothermal processes. Specifically, it focuses on realizing standard and new functions related to tissue engineering and cell transportation by designing a single type of platform. This project aims to implement photothermal gold nanoparticle arrays (PGNAs) to physically manipulate various types of entities, like living cells. Each gold nanodot will play the role of an adhesive spot exposing the RGD peptide, which are separated by nonadhesive regions functionalized with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), so that cell-binding sites will exclusively interface the nanoparticle. By irradiating well-defined areas of the PGNAs with a focused laser beam, the fellow hopes to take advantage of the local heating generated by the nanoparticles to prevent cell attachment in these hot areas. This way, it is possible to study and integrate multiple functions in order to deliver one unique dynamic platform able to precisely control both cell adhesion (releasing, patterning, guiding) and cell transportation (via optofluidics) at the PGNA interface. The “Multi-PGNAs” project may permit to integrate the same nanotechnology for the development of modern applications, while providing innovative methodologies for designing new experiments in cell biology and nanophysics.