SBIR Phase I: Magnetic Quantum Dots for Cell Separation and Characterization

这个SBIR一期项目将开发新的试剂来进行细胞分离和分析。细胞分离是一个价值39亿美元/年的市场，应用于医学、制药和生物研究行业。然而，许多目前的方案在不同的步骤中进行细胞分离和分析。一种可以同时执行这两种功能的试剂将节省时间和金钱，从而促进这些行业的发展。本研究开发的纳米颗粒试剂具有磁性，可以使细胞分离，荧光特性可以使分离细胞的特性被量化。这项研究将优化该产品，并针对当前的标准方法进行概念验证。该产品是美国国家科学基金会之前资助的关于磁性和荧光试剂结合方法的基础研究的结果，该试剂的优化将为这些纳米材料的制造和规模化提供基础知识。这些目标的成功完成将导致一种新的产品，该产品将能够使用单一试剂进行细胞分离和分析，从而实现高纯度的细胞分离，并增加用于定量的信号。这些好处可以转化为降低实验室医疗成本，提高诊断效率，提高药物纯度，并在这个新兴行业中提供高科技纳米制造工作机会。本研究将开发磁性荧光纳米粒子试剂，以实现细胞的无缝分离和随后的流式细胞术分析。细胞分离通常使用高通量的磁性试剂进行；然而，分离产物的分析是在一个单独的步骤中进行的，通常是通过流式细胞术。使用大磁珠进行分离会妨碍分析，因为所使用的磁珠比被量化的蛋白质大得多。即使使用小纳米颗粒，也需要单独的试剂进行分析，并且信号有限，因为分离和分析步骤的目标是相同的受体。因此，一种既能进行分离又能进行分析的试剂将会提高性能。这项研究将优化纳米粒子试剂，使其能够分离和分析，并将其性能与目前使用两种单独试剂的方法进行比较。因此，这项研究将展示这些试剂的关键概念验证，这些试剂使用可扩展的工艺制造，能够快速过渡到beta测试和后续商业化。

This SBIR phase I project will develop new reagents to enable cell separation and analysis. Cell separation is a $3.9 billion/yr market with applications in medicine, pharmaceutical, and biological research industries. However, many current schemes perform cell separation and analysis in separate steps. A single reagent that could perform both functions would save time and money, enhancing these industries. The nanoparticle reagent developed by this research possesses magnetic properties to enable cell separation, and fluorescent properties that allow properties of separated cells to be quantified. This research will optimize this product and demonstrate proof-of-concept against the current standard approaches. The proposed product is the result of basic research previously funded by the NSF into methods to combine magnetic and fluorescent reagents, and optimization of this reagent will yield basic knowledge in manufacture and scale-up of these nanomaterials. Successful completion of these goals will lead to a new product that will enable cell separation and analysis with a single reagent, enabling cell separation with high purity and increasing signal used for quantification. These benefits could translate into reduced laboratory healthcare costs with increased diagnostic efficiency, improved pharmaceutical purity, and high tech nanomanufacturing jobs in this burgeoning industry.This research will develop magnetic-fluorescent nanoparticle reagents to enable seamless cell separation and subsequent flow cytometry analysis. Cell separation is often performed with magnetic reagents that enable high throughput; however, analysis of the separated product is performed in a separate step, typically via flow cytometry. The use of large magnetic beads for separation prevents analysis, as the beads employed are much larger than the protein quantified. Even if small nanoparticles are used, a separate reagent is required for analysis, and signal is limited as the same receptors are targeted for both separation and analysis steps. Thus, a reagent that could perform both separation and analysis steps would improve performance. This research will optimize nanoparticle reagents that enable separation and analysis and compare their performance to the current approach using two separate reagents. Thus, this research will demonstrate crucial proof-of-concept of these reagents that are manufactured using a scalable process, enabling rapid transition to beta testing and follow-on commercialization.