TUNABLE FERRITIN BIOELECTRONICS AT THE NANOSCALE

Ferritin, the iron storage protein, which is found in human body, holds great potential for applications in molecular bioelectronics and in vivo bio-nanotechnology, since the iron core of holoferritin is semiconducting in nature. Ferritin can exhibit clear electron transfer properties, is stable within a wide range of pH and temperature, and can retain structural integrity when immobilized onto a solid surface. Inspite of appearing as a suitable candidate for broad-spectrum technological applications, some of the practical aspects, e.g., how its electronic properties can be varied/tuned, need to be better addressed. In this direction, we have successfully tested that temperature, pressure and the nature of the metal core (e.g., copper, cobalt, iron and manganese) can exert clear control on the solid-state electron transport properties of the ferritin molecules. We explored a correlation between the mechanical properties of the ferritins with their electromechanical response as the concluding part of the thesis work. For this thesis, we have adopted a multi-technique approach and have applied scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), atomic force spectroscopy (AFS), current-sensing atomic force spectroscopy (CSAFS), synthetic preparative methods, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), uv-visible spectrophotometry (UV-VIS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (with EDX) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP). The present thesis includes an introduction and four results chapters.Research was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Rupa Mukhopadhyay of the Biological Chemistry division under SBS [School of Biological Sciences]Research was carried out under DST fellowshi