  In this paper we present a framework for fast quantum conductance
calculations of carbon nanotube-based sensing devices targeting aromatic amino
acids within a tight binding approximation. The method begins by a novel
parameterization procedure based on isospectral matrix flows. With the properly
parameterized Hamiltonian we employ a linearly scaling algorithm to compute the
quantum conductance in the coherent transport regime. A few conclusions are
presented regarding the suitability of carbon nanotubes in aromatic amino acid
detection.
