Bernie Kraatz

Our group's research focuses on the design of useful biomaterials and nano-biomaterials. These biomaterials are synthesized in our lab from simple building blocks, including amino acids, nucleotides, and peptide nucleic acids, and are generally conjugated to probe molecules that enable us to monitor the properties of these materials by spectroscopic or electrochemical techniques. We have significant expertise in modifying surfaces with our bioconjugates in an effort to obtain functional devices. Gold surfaces are particularly useful in this regard and can be readily patterned to create electrochemical sensor microarrays.

In our research, we have three major objectives:

1. the development of biosensors, in particular biosensors for DNA mismatch detection, DNA sequencing, protein and chemical detection
2. the development of nano-structured peptide materials and new peptide devices
3. the discovery of new organometallic bioconjugates