Introduction: A survey of proteins in nanobioelectronics

The idea of using proteins to assemble hybrid electronic devices stems from molecular electronics [1] and, as such, it is intimately connected with the advent of nanosciences and nanotechnologies, dating back to the early 1990s. Since then, much technological effort but less scientific effort has been deployed to try to implement devices that take advantage of the peculiar features of proteins.

A technologist’s standpoint is that of regarding proteins as self-contained, nanometer-sized functional units, highly specialized and efficient in performing a certain functional task. Their efficiency is traced back to the fact that, being active parts of living beings, proteins are taking advantage of billions of years of natural evolution in specializing towards a given activity.

This way of thinking, which one can often encounter in ritten or spoken accounts, appears to be questionable in light of a rather less naïve understanding of the theory of evolution, but is perhaps a good enough starting point to understand the historical motivations which led to the remarkable interest of a interdisciplinary part of the scientific community in the use of proteins for assembling electronic devices.

The other aspect motivating the interest in proteins as elements in electronic circuits is their size.