New generation of biosensors using nanopore extended Field Effect Transistors (NexFET)

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Biosensors are an integral and increasingly important part of modern life sciences and new developments in biosensor technologies are increasingly seeing their application in the process industry, security, environmental and biodefense application markets. We seek to address the limitations of current diagnostics and we propose the development of a radical new nanotechnology for high throughput electronic recognition of neurotransmitters. While there are some moves to develop nanotechnology approaches to biosensing, these have yet to make a mark and there remains an unmet need in the development of lab-on-chip biosensors that are affordable, integrated, fast, capable of multiplexed detection and monitoring, and crucially, highly selective which can detect trace levels of analyte in biological fluids. This proposal directly addresses these issues. This will be achieved by designing a new class of nanoscale FET sensors dubbed NexFET (nanopore extended Field Effect Transistor) that combine the advantages of nanopore single molecule sensors, FET's and recognition chemistry. EPSRC's strategy states that it wishes to encourage new ways of thinking, develop new tools and stimulate further investigation in bioscience, medicine and environmental sciences within UK industry and other parts of government such as the NHS. A wide array of important biological and clinical problems exist that could be addressed with such bionanosensors. These include the study of cell growth, differentiation, migration, viral entry, immune system function and signal transduction involved in aging, cardiomyopathy, neurodegeneration, and cancer. Most of these processes involve biologically relevant molecules in cells and their environments. Thus the generation of nanosensors to measure these biological molecules in real time with high sensitivity and accuracy is potentially extremely valuable. The proposal contributes towards the EPSRC areas of Analytical Science, Diagnostics and Healthcare Technologies, and especially in the context of development of novel tools, methods, and technologies in the physical and biological sciences. It will provide the basis for a novel, easy to use, robust and inexpensive sensor technology, for the detection of neurotransmitters and proteins in-vitro in biological fluids.