Ultra-sensitive detection of bacterial toxin with silicon nanowire transistor.

Nanowire field effect transistors (nano-FET) were lithographically fabricated using 50 nm doped polysilicon nanowires attached to two small gold terminals separated from each other by a approximately 150 nm gap to serve as the basis for electronic detection of bacteria toxins. The device characterizations, semiconducting properties and use in a robust and sensitive bio-molecular detection sensor of bacterial toxins were reported in this work. The device characteristics were demonstrated with varying gate and drain voltages.

Nanowire-transistor based ultra-sensitive DNA methylation detection.

Accurate detection of DNA methylation at specific gene transcription sites is important to identify potential tumor formation since this epigenetic alteration may result in silencing of tumor suppressor genes that protect against tumor formation or that repair damaged DNA. Current technologies used in DNA methylation detection are complicated and time consuming. This work presents the first nanowire field effect transistor (FET) based biosensor technology which achieves simple and ultra-sensitive electronic DNA methylation detection and avoids complicated bisulfite treatment and PCR amplification.