NASA selected 300 small business proposals to negotiate for possible contract awards through NASA’s SBIR and STTR programs. The SBIR program selected 260 proposals for a combined value of $44 million to negotiate for Phase I feasibility study contracts. In addition, the STTR program selected 40 proposals with a combined value of $5 million to negotiate for Phase I contracts.
Ionu Biosystems in Somerville Massachusetts proposed an SBIR project (11-1X13.01-9659) to develop a fluorescent smart phone blood analyzer that can measure important physiological concentrations from a drop of blood. The approach is to develop fluorescent optode sensors to detect the concentration of the components of basic metabolic and blood gas panels.
Using wireless optode sensors removes the need for wired connection of the sensors, sample preprocessing, and microfluidics for sample handling. Fluorescence emission from the sensors will be directly measured by the built-in phone camera and the data process that can occur on the phone itself.
This smartphone will present commercial applications for NASA to enable NASA to self- monitor key physiological parameters during long flight missions and enable non NASA applications for a fluorescence-based smart phone blood diagnostics device. This technology will also be useful in communities since the device can be used in rural settings, for home health monitoring, and used in developing countries.
For more information, contact John Dubach at (617) 460-4003.
CFD Research Corporation located in Huntsville Alabama proposed STTR project (11-1T1.02-9940) to develop a novel miniaturized point-of-care (POC) device to diagnose disease pathogens. The device after development will be compact, lightweight, fully integrated, automated, highly cost effective, and power efficient.
In its final phase of development, the sensor will be integrated with a compact handheld instrument for data collection, analysis and processing, and will interface with existing NASA space instrumentation to use for both terrestrial and microgravity environments.
The device in a non NASA commercial application could provide a new type of electrochemical sensor or diagnostic technology and provide no-cell culturing based pathogen detection for a variety of applications in healthcare, life sciences, in hospital settings, and for monitoring.
The researchers will work to develop in-situ analytical tools for the preparation, detection, and analysis of low level pathogens obtained from biological fluid and or water samples. Also, the device may also be used in drug discovery, to study human diseases, to do clinical and preclinical diagnosis, as well as be used in the areas of cellular biology, microbiology, and homeland security.
For more information contact Jianjun Wei at (256) 327 0672.
Go to http://sbir.ssfc.nasa.gov then click on “SBIR 2011 Phase 1 Selection Announcements dated 11/29/2011.to view the research proposal abstracts.
