Aptamers for malaria diagnosis – a transdisciplinary venture from bio to nano

Abstract

Nucleic acid aptamers have many advantages relative to antibodies for the detection of molecules for sensing, diagnostics, and for nanomedicine. Here, I will present our team’s work on aptamer application for malaria diagnosis. I will start from the structural insight from the X-ray crystal structure of the aptamer in complex with its malaria protein biomarker target Plasmodium falciparum lactate dehydrogenase. I will go on to how the aptamer was integrated into a wide range of diagnostic tests incorporating unusual technologies to enable simple color-based detection. We will discuss how other innovative chemistries within DNA aptamers can allow for very tight and also for externally controlled binding events. Finally, I will discuss our ongoing efforts for aptamer integration with nucleic acid nanostructures which can provide nanoresponse mechanisms which will be useful for a wide variety of applications in nanomedicine. We consider this juxtaposition of nucleic acid aptamers with nucleic acid nanotechnology to be a rich opportunity for diagnostics and therapeutics.