Protein engineering for biosensor design

The use of biological materials (molecules, cells or tissues) to impact specificity and sensitivity to sensors is well established and has had some notable successes, for example in blood glucose measurement. However the use of natural biological materials suffers from the singular disadvantage that their properties have evolved to fit their biological function rather their application to sensor technology. One approach that overcomes this disadvantage is the use of biologically inspired synthetic materials. The alternative, which I will illustrate in this presentation, is to re-engineer the biology to overcome the inherent limitations of natural materials.