A pre-print by researchers from Northwestern University's Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly and the University of Chicago's Institute for Biophysical Dynamics.

Abstract: "Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) was used to construct arrays of proteins with 100 to 350 nanometer features. These nanoarrays exhibit almost no detectable nonspecific binding of proteins to their passivated portions even in complex mixtures of proteins, and therefore, provide the opportunity to study a variety of surface-mediated biological recognition processes. For example, reactions involving the protein features and antigens in complex solutions can be screened easily by atomic force microscopy (AFM). As further proof-of-concept, these arrays were used to study cellular adhesion at the submicrometer scale."