Development of an artificial nose integrating NEMS and biological olfactory receptors

Microsystems\´ including biomolecules is currently a research field in fast development and expansion. By coupling biomolecules to non-biological electronic transducers, molecular bioelectronic systems could one day be used in a wide variety of applications, including biosensors, biofuel cells and maybe even biocomputers. A major thrust in this framework is to integrate and process the chemical information at molecular level inside of a microsystem. In this sense, the animal olfactory system represents the gold standard of biosensors with its capability to identify and discriminate thousands of odorant compounds. In order to mimic the performances of natural olfactory biosensors, the overall objective of european project "SPOT-NOSED" is the development of a nanobiosensor array based on the electrical properties of single olfactory receptors. The nanobiosensor array integrates a set of nanotransducers, each of which consists of two noble metal nanoelectrodes with a single olfactory receptor anchored in between.