Research Projects
Integrated Biosensors with Wireless Capability
R&D Team: Dr. Fan Ren1, MS. Wenhsing Wu2, and Dr. Tanmay Lele1.
1Departments of Chemical Engineering, and 2Electrical and Computer Engineering
Opportunity and Impact: Integrated biosensors based upon rapid, direct optical detection promise significant impact in applications in forensics, health care, and public health. This thrust leverages work planned or underway with a subset of potential center members exploring the realization of robust biochips designed to enable these sensors to be applied outside of controlled laboratory conditions. Two different sensors will be pursued in this proposed work.
Project Description:
I. Novel AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor Based Kidney Injury and Prostate Cancer Sensor
We propose to use a novel technology based on AlGaN/GaN HEMT based bio-sensors for urine based medical applications. The specific areas include detecting urinary markers for kidney injury and prostate cancer. Preliminary results with our HEMT for detecting urine markers for kidney injury show fast response times (50 seconds), high sensitivity (in the picogram/ml range) and low sample volumes (5 microliters). The device is based on detecting changes in surface charge due to antibody-antigen interactions. Recently, urinary biomarkers for prostate cancer have emerged as a novel diagnostic approach, which may be superior to current approaches owing to the non-invasive nature of diagnosis. The protein markers we will test in urine include thymosin b15, AMACR, prostate specific antigen, calgranulin B-MRP-14 and bradeion. We will modify our current technology to allow the adsorption of monoclonal antibodies to each of these proteins on a single chip, the size of 1x1 cm for simultaneous, sensitive and parallel detection of multiple markers for prostate cancer.
II. Novel AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor Based Wireless Sensor for pH and Glucose in The Breath
The AlGaN/GaN biosensors has been demonstrated in UF for detecting specific antibody-antigen binding interactions, such as protein, DNA and kidney injury molecules. The key advantages of these sensors over current technology are 1) miniaturization, 2) measurement takes a few seconds, and 3) wireless transmission of signal from the field. In this proposed work, we will extend these studies to detect pH. Such a dev values and glucose level the breath. A wireless transceiver system will be also designed and fabricated. departments and by emergency medical personnel to quickly determine the presence of potential pathogenic organisms.