Complex Nanostructures and Bio-Nanoscale Interactions: Well Defined Synthesis, Identification and Biological Effects

In this thesis, a framework was proposed in chapter II, aiming to identify distinct shape populations and build a quantitative linkage of well-defined nanoscale shapes to biological impacts. This inductive nanoscale shape discovery and evaluation framework is biologically relevant, and we believe by utilizing machine learning it could benefit the field of shape dependent therapy. In chapter III, the shape dependent histone modifications were reported. As histone modifications are one of the crucial epigenetic regulators that control chromatin structure and gene transcription, shape dependent histone modifications indicate that some important cellular phenotypes differences induced by nanoscale shapes may be related to the histone modifications, which opens a new window for the investigation of nanoscale shape effects and nano therapy. In chapter IV, we proposed a method to modify the surface of the nanostructures by endogenous cellular processes and studies found that this re-engineered particle complex was able to transfer the loading genes to recipient cells, which indicates their potential to work as an efficient nucleic acid delivery machine.