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Artificial membranes² mimicking⁴ those found in living organisms have many potential applications ranging from detecting bacterial⁵ contaminants in food to toxic⁶ pollution in the environment to dangerous diseases in people. Now a group of scientists in Chile has developed a way to create these delicate, ultra-thin constructs through a "dry" process, by evaporating two commercial, off-the-shelf chemicals onto silicon⁷ surfaces. Described in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing, this is the first time anyone has ever made an artificial membrane¹ without mixing liquid solvents⁸ together. And because the new process creates membranes on silicon surfaces, it is a significant step toward creating bio-silicon interfaces⁹, where biological "sensor¹⁰" molecules¹¹ can be printed onto cheap silicon chip holding integrated electronic circuits.

 

"Our idea is to create a biosensor that can transmit electrical signals through the membrane," said María José Retamal, a Ph.D. student at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and first author of the paper.

 

The importance of lipid membranes to life is hard to overstate. They are a principal component¹² of the cell, as fundamental as DNA¹³ or proteins, and all known organisms on Earth, from the bittiest bacteria to the biggest blue whales, use membranes in a multitude of ways.

 

They separate distinct spaces within cells and define walls between neighboring cells -- a functional¹⁴ compartmentalization that serves many physiological¹⁵ processes, protecting genetic¹⁶ material, regulating what comes in and out of cells, and maintaining the function of separate organs.

 

Synthetic¹⁷ membranes that mimic³ nature are of great interest to science because they offer the possibility of containing membrane proteins -- biological molecules that could be used for detecting toxins¹⁸, diseases and many other biosensing applications.

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