M13 Bacteriophage as a Chemoaddressable Nanoparticle for Sensing and Cell Culturing

Reference #: 00749

Invention Description:

The present invention is the use of M13 bacteriophage for cell targeting, cell imaging, drug delivery vehicle, and bio-scaffold able to direct cell growth.

Potential Applications:

Can be customized for various therapeutic applications:

• bio-imaging (use of fluorescent dyes, magnetic contrast imaging agents)
• cell targeting molecules (use of boronic acids, folic acid, antibodies)
• drugs at high local concentrations to increase detection sensitivity and efficacy for therapeutic applications

Advantages and Benefits:

• Provides a wide array of shapes as rods and spheres
• Provides variety of sizes spanning from tens to hundreds of nanometers
• Evolutionary tested
• Multi-faceted systems with highly ordered spatial arrangement
• Provide natural cell targeting and genetic information storing
• Easily fabricated into liquid-crystal like thin films able to direct cell to growth in a well-defined direction