title: The use of nanocrystals in biological detection.
abstract: In the coming decade, the ability to sense and detect the state of biological systems and living organisms optically, electrically and magnetically will be radically transformed by developments in materials physics and chemistry. The emerging ability to control the patterns of matter on the nanometer length scale can be expected to lead to entirely new types of biological sensors. These new systems will be capable of sensing at the single-molecule level in living cells, and capable of parallel integration for detection of multiple signals, enabling a diversity of simultaneous experiments, as well as better crosschecks and controls.
authors.affiliation: University of California-Berkeley, Department of Chemistry, B60 Hildebrand Hall, Berkeley, California 94720-1460, USA. alivis@uclink4.berkeley.edu
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alivisatos
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods; D003460:Crystallization; D008027:Light; D008280:Magnetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance; D013997:Time Factors