Rosa Biotech gets biosensors on the nose

Recommendable! Do you smell something? :-)

"The human nose can distinguish at least a trillion different odours, thanks to around 400 types of scent receptors. ... Most biosensors, however, can only bind a single analyte, limiting their ability to detect different odours. Rosa Biotech ... has developed biosensing technology that mimics mammals’ olfactory system to work more like an electronic nose. The sensors bind to a huge range of analytes and, as such, detect various combinations of molecules and odours.
The technology is based on α-helix barrels engineered from peptides. The self-assembling, hyperstable molecules can be designed in an almost infinite number of variants, each of which displays different binding affinities. ... ‘Based on the number of α-helices you design, by changing the amino acids in the barrel, it changes the hindrances, charge profile and its affinity for a range of different molecules.’
Rosa engineers its sensors by combining the peptide barrels with fluorescent, hydrophobic dyes. ... Because the dyes fluoresce inside the hydrophobic environment of the barrel, but not on the outside, it produces a fluorescence profile for each barrel or analyte. ... Rosa can tweak the peptide barrels to be more sensitive to specific applications and different sets of molecules."

Rosa Biotech gets biosensors on the nose | Business | Chemistry World Protein barrel arrays mimic mammals’ olfactory system to distinguish many different molecules