SBIR Phase I: Development of a Miniaturized Multiwell Plate Reader

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是缓解目前许多细菌种类，特别是厌氧和其他挑剔生物的生长测量中的几个困难。这些物种中有大量是自然存在于人体内的，它们最近被证明在过敏、自身免疫性疾病、饮食健康、癌症、感染反应等方面发挥着关键作用。对这些物种的研究被许多人认为是现代医学的下一个前沿，特别是在目前管理传染病的方法，如传统抗生素，似乎正在失去效力的情况下。然而，目前的测量技术在很大程度上与厌氧生物必须生长的专门环境和室不相容。因此，对测量厌氧细菌生长的更好方法的需求很大；随着对该领域兴趣的增加，这种需求也在迅速增长。随着对各种人类微生物组的研究加速，以及对大容量数据的需求增长，在专门环境中进行高通量实验的能力将变得至关重要。高通量测量设备的现有市场规模至少为3亿美元，而且还在不断增长；拟议中的技术将把市场扩展到它从未涉足过的领域。这个SBIR一期项目建议开发一种技术，以比目前可用的高通量设备小得多的格式测量许多细菌样品的生长。系统和计算生物学的兴起表明对大量定量数据的需求不断增长；人体内微生物的多样性需要这种方法。然而，这种类型的数据目前几乎不可能在厌氧和其他特殊环境中收集。该项目旨在通过创建简化、小型化的硬件以及先进的实时分析和控制软件，为这些环境带来高通量增长测量技术。这个项目吗?S的第一个目标是完善一种新的概念验证光密度测量方法，以达到与传统技术相当的准确性和精密度，并使用细菌生长和无机液体测试进行验证。下一个目标是设计一个足够小和健壮的硬件外壳，以兼容最小和最繁重的环境。最后，将开发软件来管理并行运行的大量细菌实验（和设备），而不牺牲数据保真度或高分辨率。预计由此产生的高通量测量系统将极大地扩展研究人员表征微生物的能力，增加临床相关性。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project will be the alleviation of several current difficulties in the growth measurement of many bacterial species, especially anaerobic and other fastidious organisms. A large number of these species are naturally occurring in the human body, and they have recently been shown to play critical roles in allergies, autoimmune diseases, dietary health, cancer, infection response, and more. The study of these species is considered by many to be the next frontier of modern medicine, especially as current approaches to managing infectious diseases, such as traditional antibiotics, appear to be losing effectiveness. However, current measurement technology is largely incompatible with the specialized environments and chambers in which anaerobic organisms must be grown. There is therefore a large unmet need for better ways to measure anaerobic bacterial growth; this need is growing quickly as interest in the field increases. The ability to conduct high-throughput experiments in specialized environments will become critical as research into various human microbiomes accelerates, and demand for high-volume data grows. The existing market for high-throughput measurement devices is at least $300 million and growing; the proposed technology will expand that market to fields it has never served.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop technology for measuring growth of many bacterial samples in a format much smaller than currently available high-throughput devices. The rise of systems and computational biology demonstrates a growing demand for large amounts of quantitative data; the variety of microbes in the human body necessitates such an approach. However, this type of data is currently nearly impossible to collect in anaerobic and other specialized environments. This project aims to bring high-throughput growth measurement techniques to these environments by creating simplified, miniaturized hardware paired with advanced real-time analysis and control software. The project?s first objective is to refine a novel proof-of-concept optical density measurement method to achieve accuracy and precision comparable to traditional techniques, and verify using bacterial growth and inorganic liquid testing. The next goal is to design a hardware enclosure small and robust enough to allow compatibility with the smallest and most taxing environments. Finally, software will be developed to manage a high number of bacterial experiments (and devices) running in parallel without sacrificing data fidelity or high resolution. It is anticipated that the resulting high-throughput measurement system will greatly expand researchers' abilities to characterize microbes of increasing clinical relevance.