SBIR Phase I: Fluorescence-Amplified Nana-Assembly for Sensing Bio-Toxins

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目是开发一种用于检测/识别生物战剂（BWA）的新型功能纳米结构。提出了一种新型荧光扩增纳米组装（FLAN），用于实时、选择性和超灵敏的BWAs和毒素检测。该技术的基本概念是模拟细胞膜在某些生物和毒素最初攻击下的状态。活细胞能迅速识别并选择性地应对入侵。FLAN利用分子识别、荧光转导和荧光扩增三个关键要素进行目标检测，提供简单直接的荧光检测。分子受体识别BWA；结合引起局部三元结构的变化，并导致放大的荧光结构，可以定量光学。合成的纳米结构具有生物活性和高稳定性。BWA-FLAN受体结合是一个快速的一步反应；它不需要复杂的分离和洗涤步骤，标记荧光团，或可视化试剂。在一期项目中，研究者将设计和合成具有bwa特异性受体的功能纳米结构，开发FLAN分子组装，开发荧光传感系统，表征，测试和评估其技术优点。高度选择性和敏感的分子识别在整个生物学、生物技术和临床诊断中都很重要。商业应用国土和民用防御应用包括病原体和疾病的医疗诊断以及用于生物恐怖主义制剂的非医疗污染避免传感器。提出的基于纳米结构的分析方法可以很容易地适应医学界、环境和农业测试以及食品工业感兴趣的目标，并与便携式阅读器一起用于临床或医院环境中的诊断。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop a novel functional nanostructure for detection/identification of biological warfare agents (BWA). A new class of fluorescence-amplified nano-assembly (FLAN) is proposed for real-time, selective, and ultra-sensitive BWAs and toxins assays. The basic concept of this technology is to mimic the cell membrane under certain organisms and toxins initially attack. Living cells quickly recognize and selectively respond towards invasion. The FLAN using three key elements for target detection: 1) molecular recognition, 2) fluorescence transduction, and 3) fluorescence amplification, to provide simple and direct fluorescent assay. The molecular receptors recognize the BWA; the binding causes a change in the local ternary structure, and which leads to an amplified fluorescent structure that can be quantified optically. The synthetic nanostructures exhibit bioactivities and high stability. The BWA-FLAN receptor binding is a rapid one-step reaction; it does not require complicate separation and washing steps, labeled fluorophore, or visualization reagents. During the Phase I project, the investigator will design and synthesize functional nanostructures with BWA-specific receptors, develop FLAN molecular assembly, develop fluorescence sensing system, characterize, test, and evaluate its technical merits. Highly selective and sensitive molecular recognition is important throughout biology, biotechnology, and clinical diagnostics. COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS Homeland and civilian defense applications include medical diagnostic of pathogens and diseases as well as non-medical contamination avoidance sensors for biological terrorism agents. The proposed nanostructure-based assays could be easily adapted to targets of interest to the medical community, environmental and agricultural testing, and food industry and used in conjunction with the portable reader for diagnostics in clinical or hospital setting.