The National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Diagnostic Program and FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health seek parties interested in doing collaborative research. The goal is to further develop, evaluate, or commercialize a simple portable biosensor platform based on the semiconductor electrical percolation of single-walled carbon nanotubes. There is also the need to develop electronics, microfluidics, and software to utilize the chip.
There are several potential commercial applications that can result in:
- Miniaturized biosensors for various biomedical applications to diagnose human diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular, or other biomarkers
- Point-of-care diagnostics and personalized medicine
- Rapid or real-time diagnostics
- Methods to monitor food safety and to detect environmental pollution
- Methods to regulate and activate implantable biomedical devices such as insulin pumps or artificial hearts
- A new generation of personal detectors for food allergens and cardiovascular events etc
The advantages to developing electrical percolation Biological Semiconductors (BSC) is that they are relatively simple to assemble and do not require specialized fabrication facilities or experience.
Other advantages include:
- BSCs can be fabricated into the same chip enabling simultaneous detection of many analytes
- Electronic-based BSC detection enables simple digital signal amplification and analysis
- BSCs enable rapid or real-time measurements
- BSCs are relatively stable with respect to retention of biological viability and can be stored for long periods of time
- BSCs are relatively low cost devices, simple to use, and may not require special equipment of a skilled operator.
U.S. and international patents have been filed. For more information email John D. Hewes PhD, at hewesj@mail.nih.gov and reference announcement #887.
