David Benson Title Assistant Professor Division Inorganic Education B.A.,Goshen College,1990 Ph.D,University of Illinois,1997 NIH Postdoctoral Fellow,Duke University,1998-2000 Office Chem 365 Phone (313)577-6914 E-Mail Group http://chem.wayne.edu/bensongroup

Our lab is integrating inorganic chemistry with biomolecular design to provide a revolution in chemical biology. We have attached proteins and DNA to semiconducting nanoparticles, or quantum dots. By using concepts from biological electron transfer, these biomolecule-nanoparticle assemblies can reversibly detect concentrations of sugars, lipids, and metal ions. The bioanalytical application of this research is to use these assemblies as reagents for fluorescence contrast imaging. Through collaboration with Dana Spence, we are examining glucose and Pb2+ ion concentrations in and localization within red blood cells. The goal of this work is to provide a better understanding of Diabetes and lead toxicity.

On the material side, we are integrating biomolecular function into the surface properties of the adsorbed material. Electron transfer provides communication from a metal complex attached to the biomolecule to the electronic structure of the material. We have used this approach to provide changes in fluorescence and electrochemistry of materials. One could also envision these effects providing changes in surface plasmon resonance, surface enhanced Raman, and photoconductivity. In the future this work will contribute to building material-cell interfaces that communicate with each other.

While interfacing biomolecules with materials allows device engineetring/integration to occur, metal binding sites need to be designed into the adsorbed biomolecule to alter the chemical function of the biomolecule. We use a computational approach to predict amino acid sidechain replacements of known protein structures to provide metal binding sites. These metal sites are engineered to selectively bind particular metal ions, provide catalytic function, or release a molecule bound to the protein. When these functions have been integrated into the protein-material interfaces, bidirectional chemical communication between instrumentation and cells will be established. This work will provide a basis for constructing a functional human-computer interface or improve the performance of implantable sensors.

Benson DE "Reagentless Biosensors Based on Nanoparticles" in Volume 8, "Nanomaterals for Biosensing" in the Nanomaterials for Life Sciences book series, Wiley Interscience, 2007, in press

Aryal BP, Sandros MG, Neupane, KP, Benson DE "Metallothioneins Initiate Semiconducting Nanoparticle Cellular Toxicity", Small, 2, 2006, 1159-1163.

Sandros MG, Shete V, Benson DE "Selective, Reversible, Reagentless Maltose Biosensing with Core-Shell Semiconducting Nanoparticles" Analyst 131, 2006, 229 - 235.

Sandros MG, Gao D, Benson DE "A Modular Nanoparticle-Based System for Reagentless Small Molecule Biosensing." J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 2005, 12198-12199.

Sandros MG, Gao D, Gokdemir C, Benson DE "General, High-Affinity Approach for the Synthesis of Fluorophore Appended Protein Nanoparticle Assemblies." Chem. Commun. 2005, 2832-2834.