title: Nanocapsules with functionalized surfaces and walls.
abstract: With the possibility of creating and handling nanometer-sized objects, it became popular to dream of future miniaturized tools allowing completely new applications in medicine and technology. Mother nature created during evolution many such self-assembled highly sophisticated and robust objects, and it is very tempting to modify them for other purposes: artificial cells as intelligent submarines floating in the bloodstream attacking cancer cells, single-molecule detection and manipulation allowing the bottom-up construction of devices, and so on. Nanobiotechnology became a hot topic and significant budgets have been attributed to it. However, caution has to be paid that unrealistic dreams might have a fairly negative effect on the taxpayer seeing unkept promises. In this paper, we explore the possibilities of using biological substances in material science.
authors.affiliation: University of Porto, Porto 4200-465, Portugal.
authors.forename: Manuel A N
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Coelho
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gliozzi
authors.forename: Helmuth
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Möhwald
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Perez
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Sleytr
authors.forename: Horst
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vogel
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Winterhalter
mesh_terms: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D002214:Capsules; D049329:Nanostructures; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D002214:Capsules