Study for the Development of a Biosensor Aimed at the Interaction-Response of Chemical War Agents and Ionizing Radiation

Abstract

It has long been known that the nuclear sector is a potential branch capable of solving major obstacles relevant to modern society with regard to energy demands. The technology in this sphere is associated with various possibilities, including areas that require multidisciplinary expertise for their respective advancements, such as medical sciences, security and defense, national autonomy and sovereignty, energy generation, food technology, among others. With the development of nanostructured technologies, highly sensitive, accessible, and easy to handle, it is possible to introduce new alternatives to reduce the “gap” between these possibilities within the sector, making the nuclear area more visible to new researchers due to the potential for new research to be developed. With the prospect of innovation for the sector and with increasing technological input, a special look at instrumental and measurement issues is necessary, since it is also necessary to ensure the quality of nuclear technology for the development of any system focused on this theme. This research presents a combination of different areas, highlighting the multidisciplinarity of construction, aiming to obtain the necessary support for the creation of a device capable of interacting with systems that represent chemical and radiological-nuclear threats. As it is a biosensor, it presents a biological interface sensitive to chemical warfare agents (organophosphates), neurotoxins and undergoes a process analogous to radiolysis, it is the means by which it is possible to associate electronics to the system, being capable of transducing information from one form of energy to another, making it possible to quantify and obtain relevant and proportional information about the exposure of this system created. For the in silico study carried out, the energy fluctuations for both the chemical simulations and the MCNP simulations were guiding the verification process, since the lower the energy value, the stronger the chemical interaction between ligands and enzymes.