Dresden 2014 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 3: Symposium SKM Dissertation-Prize 2014
BP 3.4: Hauptvortrag
Montag, 31. März 2014, 12:15–12:40, CHE 89
Unraveling the impact of subsurface and surface properties of a material on biological adhesion - a multi-scale approach — •Peter Loskill1, Hendrik Hähl1, Markus Bischoff2, Kellar Autumn3, Mathias Herrmann2, and Karin Jacobs1 — 1Experimental Physics, Saarland University, D-66041 Saarbrücken, Germany — 2Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, Saarland University, 66421 Homburg/Saar, Germany — 3Department of Biology, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219, USA
Understanding the adhesion of biological objects to inorganic surfaces is an important research objective in physics and the life sciences. To characterize biological adhesion, most studies describe a substrate solely by its surface properties; the composition of the material beneath the surface is frequently overlooked. That way, long-range van der Waals (vdW) interactions are disregarded. This work reveals that biological objects of all scales - nanoscopic proteins, microscopic bacteria, and macroscopic geckos - are influenced by nanoscale differences in the interface potential. By using tailored silicon wafers with a variable silicon oxide layer thickness, the vdW part of the interface potential is tuned independently from the surface properties. By modifying the wafers with silane monolayers, the surface chemistry can be varied separately as well. On these model substrates, adsorption and adhesion experiments were performed. Protein adsorption was investigated by in situ X-ray reflectometry, bacterial adhesion was explored via AFM force spectroscopy with bacterial probes, and gecko adhesion was characterized using a mechanical testing platform.