Grating-Coupled Evanescent Wave Sensor

这项工作的目标是开发一种新的无标签检测技术应用于蛋白质微阵列。第一阶段的目标是构建一个面包板原型，以表征这种新方法的性能并建立可行性。该技术基于多层光栅耦合（MGR）倏逝波传感方法，具有为微阵列的大规模并行分析提供高度复用测量的潜力，具有高灵敏度，并且没有基于标签的方法或其他无标签方法（如表面等离子体共振（SPR））的缺点和局限性。这一创新解决了蛋白质组学中的“检测问题”；也就是说，如何以高灵敏度和高时空分辨率准确测量与蛋白质微阵列的结合是一个困难而紧迫的问题。我们将建立一个原型成像系统，并演示用一次性传感器芯片上的原型微阵列进行多路测量。初步结果为所建议的工作提供了坚实的基础，并表明成功的可能性很大。潜在的应用范围从基础研究到药物靶点发现到临床诊断。例子包括蛋白质表达谱；高通量配体捕捞，鉴定新的受体和天然配体，免疫反应表征，蛋白家族同源性研究，鉴定疾病标志物等。我们认为，药物发现和开发领域是该技术最大的直接商业机会之一，其次是长期的临床诊断。我们预计，这里提出的高通量、无标签微阵列的MGR系统将占据这些市场的重要部分。

The goal of this effort is to develop a novel label-free detection technology for application to protein microarrays. The objective of the Phase I is to build a breadboard prototype to characterize the performance of this new approach and to establish feasibility. The technology is based on a multilayer grating-coupled (MGR) evanescent wave sensing method with the potential to provide highly multiplexed measurements for massively parallel analysis of microarrays with high sensitivity and without the drawbacks and limitations of label-based methods or other label-free methods such as surface plasmon resonance (SPR). This innovation addresses the "detection problem" in proteomics; that is, the difficult and pressing problem of how to accurately measure binding to a protein microarray with high sensitivity and high spatial and temporal resolution. We will build a prototype imaging system and demonstrate multiplexed measurements with prototype microarrays made on disposable sensor chips. Preliminary results provide a solid foundation for the proposed work and indicate a high probability of success. Potential applications range from basic research to drug target discovery to clinical diagnostics. Examples include protein expression profiling; high-throughput ligand fishing, identifying new receptor and natural ligands, immune response characterization, homology studies on protein families, identifying disease markers and others. We believe that the field of drug discovery and development presents one of the largest immediate commercial opportunities for the proposed technology, followed by clinical diagnostics in the longer term. We anticipate that the high-throughput, label-free microarray-based MGR system proposed here will capture a significant segment of these market. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Potential applications range from basic research to drug target discovery to clinical diagnostics. Specific examples include protein expression profiling; high-throughput annotation of gene products, defining binding domains, epitopes and interacting molecular motifs, high-throughput ligand fishing, identifying new receptors and natural ligands, immune response characterization, homology studies on protein families, identifying disease markers and others.