Functional nanomaterials with fluorescent or quenching abilities are important for the development of molecular probes for detection and studies of nucleic acids. Here, we describe a new class of molecular nanoprobes, the NanoCeracQ that uses nanoceria particles as a nanoquencher of fluorescent oligonucleotides for rapid and sensitive detection of DNA sequences and hybridization events. We show that nanoceria forms stable and reversible bionanoconjugates with oligonucleotides and can specifically recognize and detect DNA sequences in a single step. In absence of the target DNA, the nanoprobe produced minimal background fluorescence due to the high quenching efficiency of nanoceria. Competitive binding of the target induced a concentration dependent increase in the fluorescence signal due to hybridization and release of the fluorescent tag from the nanoparticle surface. The nanoprobe enabled sensitive detection of the complementary strand with a detection limit of 0.12 nM, using a single step procedure. The results show that biofunctionalized nanoceria can be used as a universal nanoquencher and nanosensing platform for fluorescent DNA detection and studies of nucleic acid interactions. This approach can find broad applications in molecular diagnostics, sensor development, gene expression profiling, imaging and forensic analysis.