STTR Phase I: A Biodetector for Rapid On-Site Screening of Breeder Chickens with High Feed Efficiency

小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目将开发一种免疫传感器，用于快速、现场鉴定种鸡的饲料效率（FE）。提议公司的工业合作伙伴已经开发了一种种鸡的谱系，其后代是美国商业上使用的肉鸡的主要品系之一。来自相同雄性品系并饲喂相同饮食的个体禽类在FE方面表现出约20%的差异。先前的工作已经确定，至少有18个血浆蛋白在低和高FE鸟类中差异表达。该I期项目将重点开发一种低成本检测方法，该方法使用基于毛细管柱的生物分离器/生物反应器（用于蛋白质捕获）和光学检测池（用于蛋白质检测），具有快速区分低FE和高FE肉鸡中蛋白质表达水平所需的灵敏度。该项目的商业应用将在家禽业。培育优良肉鸡品系的公司会发现， 利用所提出的装置显著节省了进料和劳动力成本。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I Project will develop an immunosensor for rapid, on-site identification of feed efficiency (FE) in breeder chickens. The proposing company's industrial partner has developed a pedigree line of breeder chickens whose progeny is one of the major lines of broilers used commercially in the U.S. Individual birds from the same male-line and fed the same diet exhibit approximately 20% difference in FE. Prior work has determined that at least 18 plasma proteins are differentially expressed in low and high FE birds. This Phase I project will focus on developing a low cost assay using a capillary column based bioseparator / bioreactor (for protein capture) and an optical detection cell (for protein detection) with the sensitivity necessary to rapidly differentiate protein expression levels in low and high FE broilers. The commercial application of this project will be on the poultry industry. Companies breeding elite lines of broilers will find substantial savings in feed and labor costs with the proposed device.