Synthetic antibody-like receptors from molecular imprinted inorganic/organic hybrids

Antibodies are natural receptor molecules produced by the immunosystem after contact with an antigen. In an attempt to mimic nature, the technique of molecular imprinting is being developed, which allows specific recognition sites to be formed in synthetic polymers through the use of templates. These recognition sites mimic the binding sites of antibodies and may substitute them in applications such as affinity separations, assay systems and biosensors. However, state-of-the-art molecularly imprinted organic polymers are produced in organic solvents due to the needs of hydrogen bonding which is the preferred intermolecular binding force for the pre-polymerization complex. On the other hand, most of their bio-application must be carried out in water, and additionally they do not possess good thermo and mechanical stability. Our project will be focused on engineering a cheap and durable imprinted organic/inorganic hybrid materials in aqueous systems for the above-mentioned bio-applications. Model compounds in range of sugars, oligosaccharides, and peptides will be chosen as target templates to be imprinted in order to build up the binding assays and evaluate the imprinting. In particular, we believe that the combination of inorganic network and crosslinking organic polymers may prove to be a good and realistic methodology to improve the mechanical properties of the products. Since the proposed imprinting methodology may be realized in aqueous solutions, through this research, the technology of molecular imprinting can be expected to be further developed, and eventually replace antibodies for various biological/biomedical research and disease diagnosis applications in aqueous solutions.