I've been fascinated by bio-electronics and nanobiotechnology for some time now. The idea that you can attach bio-structures to semiconductor nano-structure to make new biosensors that can sense things like cancer from a patients breath, for example, is astonishing (see Biosensors ). There is a website called Open WetWare that provides open source information and courses from many universities like MIT on biology and bioengineering. This might be a good place to look for information and techniques to functionalize nano-structures (like nanowire, quantum dot, nano-FET, etc).