Group of Dr. Soledad Penadés of CIC biomaGUNE

Doctors Elena Martines and Isabel García, together with Professor Soledad Penadés, from the Glyconanotechnology Laboratory of the Unit for Biofunctional Nanomaterials in CIC biomaGUNE, have made two new scientific discoveries as a result of their research related to the tests and results obtained using Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM), and this has led to an application for two European patents.

The Atomic Force Microscope is an essential tool for studying biological interactions, and it enables scientists to identify and visualise samples of nanometric dimensions with extraordinary resolution. In CIC biomaGUNE, which is dedicated to research into biomaterial and the study, among other things, of biological surfaces and interactions (in infection, inflammation, immunity or cancers), the Atomic Force Microscope is used to measure such things as the forces that exist between the carbohydrates (sugars) of the coating on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the human cell receptors that the virus uses to pass on the infection.

Atomic Force Microscopes do not work using light, but with the detection of minute atomic or molecular forces of interaction between a fine tip and the surface of the material that is being studied. For this reason, the key part of an AFM is a minuscule needle –only 5 nanometres long- that is poised at a certain distance from the surface of the material, measuring the topography and force of its atoms.

The patents that have been applied for are related to this needle, also called a probe, which has a crystalline tip in the shape of a pyramid, and which is fragile and expensive. The first of the patents is for a machine that allows scientists to fix and functionalise various probes simultaneously, which speeds up the process, making manipulation of the probe easier (up till now it had to be done by hand), and preventing contamination of the probe and breakages (the machine generates very little friction).

The second patent is for the design of a hermetically sealed box designed to store and transport AFM probes. Its main value lies in the fact that the probes that have already been functionalised, i.e. that have been treated with a protein, can be transported in liquid, and thanks to the water-proof container, the protein does not become denatured.

These two advances developed by the researchers of CIC biomaGUNE are of great interest to research groups and companies that work with this type of microscope (or that manufacture them), as they provide answers to problems of functionalisation and transport of AFM probes related with their fragility, and hence will affect their cost.