Quantifying Interactions of Biomolecules with Inorganic Surfaces: Doctoral thesis accepted by the National University of Singapore, Singapore

Abstract

In this piece of work, we have demonstrated how existing tools and techniques can be adapted to attack some of the relevant problems in biomedical sciences. Our strength has been the ability to make highly controlled experiments which has generated knowledge which is immediately applicable. For instance, we have used the interactions of the atomic force microscopy tip with a sample to predict its hydrophilicity. The result is a technique which can locally evaluate (across spatial resolutions in tens of square nanometers) the wettabilities and relative surface energies of any surface and have shown that the learning from such a small volume can be extended to macroscopic sample sizes.