Biological organisms, phenomena and strategies, herein referred to as biological systems, provide a rich set of analogies that can be used to inspire engineering innovation. Biologically-inspired, or biomimetic, designs are publicly viewed as creative and novel solutions to human problems. Moreover, some biomimetic designs have become so commonplace that it is hard to image life without them (e.g. velcro, airplanes). Although the biologically- inspired solutions are innovative and useful, the majority of inspiration taken from nature has happened by chance observation, dedicated study of a specific biological entity (e.g., gecko), or asking a biologist to explain the biology in simple terms. This reveals a fundamental problem of working across the engineering and biological domains. The effort and time required to become a competent engineering designer creates significant obstacles to becoming sufficiently knowledgeable about biological systems (the converse can also be said). This research aims to remove the element of chance, reduce the amount of time and effort required to developing biologically-inspired solutions, and bridge the seemingly immense disconnect between the engineering and biological domains. To facilitate systematic biologically-inspired design, a design methodology that relies on a framework of tools and techniques that bridge the two domains is established. The design tools and techniques that comprise the framework achieve: Identification of relevant biological solutions based on function; translation of identified biological systems of interest; functional representation of biological information such that it can be used for engineering design activities; and conceptualization of biomimetic engineering designs. Using functional representation and abstraction to describe biological systems presents the natural designs in an engineering context and allows designers to make connections between biological and engineered systems. Thus, the biological information is accessible to engineering designers with varying biological knowledge, but a common understanding of engineering design methodologies. This work has demonstrated the feasibility of using systematic design for the discovery of innovative engineering designs without requiring expert-level knowledge, but rather broad knowledge of many fields. / Graduation date: 2011

Les biocapteurs sont des moyens d'analyse en plein essor à la fois rapides, sélectifs et peu coûteux, applicables à des domaines très variés (environnement, santé, agroalimentaire…). La capacité de reconnaissance moléculaire extraordinaire de biomolécules telles que les enzymes ou les anticorps a été exploitée avec succès pour la réalisation de nombreux biocapteurs. Cependant, l'inconvénient majeur de ces récepteurs biologiques est qu'ils sont difficiles à produire et fragiles. Une manière de surmonter ces inconvénients consiste à les remplacer par des récepteurs artificiels présentant des propriétés de reconnaissance similaires. Parmi les matériaux biomimétiques prometteurs figurent les polymères à empreintes moléculaires (MIPs). Dans ce travail, nous nous sommes intéressés au développement de deux capteurs biomimétiques impédimétriques, le premier basé sur l'utilisation de poly(éthylène co-alcool vinylique) imprimé pour la détection de la créatinine et le deuxième sur des MIPs de polyméthacrylate pour la détection de la testostérone. Dans le premier cas, le polymère imprimé a été produit et déposé à la surface d'électrodes en or, soit par drop-coating, soit sous forme de nanofibres par la technique d'électrofilage. Dans le deuxième, le MIP a été synthétisé par polymérisation radicalaire de l'acide méthacrylique en présence d'éthylèneglycol diméthacrylate (réticulant), d'initiateur et de testostérone en utilisant la méthode du « grafting from » qui consiste à greffer d'abord l'initiateur sur la surface du transducteur mais pour la polymérisation on a utilisé deux approches (spin-coating d'une solution de prépolymérisation sur la surface du transducteur ou l'immersion de ce dernier dans la solution de monomère plus testostérone) suivie de l'exposition à une source d'energie pour effectuer la polymérisation. Les performances des capteurs (limite de détection, sélectivité, reproductibilité) ont ensuite été évaluées / Biosensors are rapid, selective and low-cost analytical devices of growing interest for a wide range of application fields (e.g. environment, food, health). The extraordinary molecular recognition capabilities of sensing biomolecules such as enzymes and antibodies have been successfully exploited in the elaboration of a number of biosensors. However, these biorecognition elements are often produced via complex and costful protocols and require specific handling conditions because of their poor stability. To circumvent these limitations, artificial receptors of similar recognition properties are now proposed as alternatives to natural receptors in sensor technology. Molecular imprinted polymers are among the most promising biomimetic materials reported. In this work, we developed two impedimetric biomimetic sensors. The first one is based on imprinted poly(ethylene co-vinyl alcohol) for creatinine detection and the second on polymethacrylate MIPs for testosterone analysis. In the first case, MIP was produced and deposited onto gold microelectrodes, either by spin-coating of a pre-polymerization solution, or by electrospinning. In the second case, MIPs were synthetized by photopolymerization of methacrylic acid in presence of ethyleneglycoldimethacrylate (cross-linker), an azo-initiator and testosterone as template using the “grafting from” method in which the initiator is first attached to the transducer surface but to effect polymerization we used two different approaches (dip-coating of a prepolymerization solution on the transducer surface functionalized with the initiator or immersing it in the solution of monomers and testosterone) followed by exposure to an energy source to effect polymerization. Then, analytical performances (linear range, detection limit, selectivity and reproducibility) of both creatinine and testosterone sensors were determined and compared