EAGER: Design and Validation of a Point-of-Care Device To Detect Biomarkers of Pain

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Currently, there are no POC (Point of Care) sensing platforms available to individuals to monitor a patient's biological response to pain, disease triggers, airborne irritants, toxins, or the recurrence of an infectious disease or cancer, by direct and rapid profiling of critical biomarkers that may be present in biofluid samples. Such biomarker-based diagnostics could have numerous applications in precision medicine, among them precision pain management and the reduction of opioid abuse. This project will design, build, and validate a microfluidic point-of-care (POC) device that will separate, identify and quantify cytokines that are markers for pain. The device will analyze biomarkers of pain in all types of liquid biopsies.This research will focus on the detection of biomarkers for pain in the serum of a rat model. The cytokines will be identified at the required ultralow concentrations through binding to targeting peptide sequences featuring fluorescent labels and subsequent separation by means of Isoelectric Focusing (IEF). It is well established that pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines correlate with the perception of pain. Therefore, the proposed POC-device will make pain "quantifiable" and enable precision pain management. The team of investigators will combine the required expertise in neuroscience, drug addiction and pain research (Dr. Cunningham), Biophotonics and medical device development (Dr. Motamedi), microfluidic technology and IEF device development (Dr. Culbertson), and biological chemistry, bioengineering, and Biophotonics (Dr. Bossmann, PI).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.