Abstract
The surface charge effect in controlling ionic conductance through a nanoporous alumina membrane is investigated for its application in a convenient detection method of unlabeled DNA. To this goal, surface modification with mixtures of neutral silanes and morpholinos (neutral analogues of DNA) was optimized to yield a strong effect on ionic conductance change upon DNA binding, which can exceed an order of magnitude. The effect can be employed in fabrication of inexpensive DNA sensors.