SAN DIEGO, March 17 (UPI) -- Scientists in Wisconsin have used bacteria to make tiny bio-electronic circuits, a step towards new sensors and perhaps new nano-manufacturing techniques.
"One of the great challenges of nanotechnology remains the assembly of nano-scale objects into more complex systems," says Robert Hamers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison and senior author of the report. "We think that bacteria and other small biological systems can be used as templates for fabricating even more complex systems."
The team developed a system to guide living microbes, one by one, between a pair of electrodes only a germ's length apart. When the bacteria lands in between it completes the circuit. The system enables researchers to capture, interrogate and release bacterial cells -- a technique that could be used for sensors able to detection of dangerous bioterror agents almost instantaneously.
The research was described Thursday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego and will appear in the April issue of the journal Nano Letters.
