Bo Gunnar Liedberg

Biography

"Bo Liedberg is full professor of Sensor Science and Molecular Physics (2000- ), at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Sweden. Liedberg is also the head of the scientific branch Applied Physics which encompasses seven research divisions at the Department. His research is primarily devoted to soft materials science including surface chemistry, self-assembly, supramolecular chemistry and biomimetics. Liedberg is heading a research group of about 25 PhD students, post docs and staff, and the research focuses on the application of advanced surface- and nanoscience tools for the study of interface phenomena on planar as well as nanoparticle surfaces. A significant portion of the work is devoted to applications in biology and medicine (eg. in biosensing and molecular recognition) and to the development of novel transduction principles for biochemical/biological sensing and biomedical diagnostics. Liedberg is also interacting strongly the bioanalytical industry in Sweden, and he was involved the early development of the optical detection system (surface plasmon resonance based) used in today’s Biacore instrumentation for biospecific interaction analysis (currently sold by GE-Healthcare). He is also the co-founder and co-owner of two start ups operating in the diagnostic sector. Prof. Liedberg has been the supervisor of about 30 PhD students. He is the author and co-author of about 190 original scientific articles, book chapters and reviews. He has also served as guest editor and co-editor for several sensor- and surface science oriented Journals. Liedberg is currently on a 7 months sabbatical (August 2009 - March 2010) at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where he is in charge of building up a new laboratory focusing on the next generation biomimetic biosensors. This mission is undertaken jointly with scientists from the Schools of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Sciences at NTU, IMRE A*Star and DSO National Laboratories as well as with a group of scientists from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Vienna, Austria and Uppsala University, Sweden. Liedberg has a three year contract to establish a Centre for Biomimetic Sensor Science at NTU."

Research Interest

"The research interests of Prof. Bo Liedberg can be divided into three main areas Surface Chemistry and Self Assembled Monolayers This part of the research concerns fundamental studies of adsorbates and ultrathin molecular architectures, like Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs), on solid supports. The group was very early in studying self-assembly of substituted alkylthiols on gold substrates. A key activity has been to study temperature driven phenomena occurring in such assemblies as well as in adsorbed layers on top such SAMs. Oligo(ethylene glycol) and oligosaccharide SAMs have attracted considerable attention, both experimentally and theoretically, because of their structural characteristics and advantageous properties in contact with biofluids. Another area concerns interfacial water and ice. Temperature programmed studies have been undertaken to improve the understanding of the nucleation and microscopic wetting behavior of water/ice. The complexity of the SAMs has increased over the years and we are today focusing on architectures based on SAMs bearing multivalent chelator heads, helix-loop-helix polypeptides and receptor functions. Bioinspired and Biomimetic Nanoscience This research concerns the development of nanoscale architectures fabricated using either top-down or bottom-up protocols (or a combination of both). We are, for example, developing plasmonic arrays based on 100 nm gold nano dots on silicon and glass surface for amplification of optical fluorescence signals, so-called metal enhanced fluorescence (MEF). We are also developing composite materials based on a combination of de novo designed peptide scaffolds, planar surfaces and nanoparticles of controlled size and shape. A novel concept based on peptide folding has been used for controlled assembly of gold nanoparticles. The group is also involved in the development of Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) for patterning of surfaces on the 30-100 nm length scale. This work is performed jointly with a previous student of the group who nowadays is setting up a nanolaboratory at the Institute of Physics, Vilnius. We are also involved in several EC projects where different types of micro- and nanoscale patterning tools are employed for production of coatings for biofouling, sensing and biomedical applications. "