Highly Sensitive Biosensor Platform Using Optical Microring Resonators

描述（由申请人提供）： 这个指导职业发展奖为我过渡到生物医学科学领域提供了一个很好的途径。我拿到了博士学位。在电气工程，然后花了三年的工业应用光子技术的网络。尽管我的事业有了一个成功的开端，正如我的出版物、奖项和发明披露所展示的那样，但研究领域对我来说并不吸引人。因此，10个月前，我获得了密苏里州大学生命科学博士后奖学金，并被任命为生物光子学实验室的范旭东教授，这是我申请的赞助人。我们的研究重点是化学，环境和生物医学应用的光学传感器的开发。在我在这里的短暂时间里，我有四个第一作者的期刊出版物和其他几个共同作者。此外，我还在出席人数众多的会议上发表了三次演讲，并且我是向大学提交的三项发明披露的共同发明人。最初的成功只是我实现最终目标的一小步，即成为一名教职员工并领导一个将光子学和纳米技术应用于生物医学应用的研究小组。目前，在知识、培训和经验方面存在差距。然而，在这份申请中，我相信我已经设计了一个程序，使我能够获得完成职业目标所需的培训。我们将实验研究三种类型的光学传感器，包括无标记传感器，荧光量子点传感器和表面增强拉曼光谱传感器。我们的三种传感器架构都基于光学环形谐振器，这是一种相对较新的技术平台，利用了微尺寸介电物体中的光谐振模式。我们将致力于将环形谐振器传感技术应用于循环肿瘤细胞检测的最终目标。实现这一目标将为医疗从业者提供一个简单的工具，用于早期检测癌症，并能够更有效地监测治疗进展。我们已经召集了一批优秀的项目发起人和合作者，以帮助实现这一积极的研究目标，并支持我的职业发展。相关性：该项目带来的技术进步将使今天不可能的疾病诊断，治疗和预防的新应用成为可能。相应的例子包括用于早期疾病诊断的痕量生物标志物的检测，用于药物设计的小分子的检测，以及用于推进DNA研究的可能性的单个DNA核苷酸的鉴定。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This mentored career development award offers an excellent path for me to transition into the field of biomedical sciences. I received my Ph.D. in electrical engineering and then spent three years in industry applying photonics technology to networks. Despite a successful beginning to my career, as exhibited by my publications, awards, and invention disclosures, the research landscape was unappealing to me. As a result, ten months ago I began a new career upon obtaining the University of Missouri Life Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship with an appointment to the biophotonics lab of Prof. Xudong Fan, the sponsor on this application. Our research focuses on the development of optical sensors with chemical, environmental, and biomedical applications. During the short time that I have been here, I have four first-authored journal publications and several others as a co-author. Additionally, I have delivered three presentations at highly attended conferences and I have been a co-inventor on three invention disclosures filed with the university. This initial success is only a small step towards my ultimate goal of becoming a faculty member and leading a research group that is applying photonics and nanotechnology to biomedical applications. Currently, a gap in knowledge, training, and experience exists. However, in this application, I believe that I have designed a program to enable me to acquire the training that I need to accomplish my career goals. We will experimentally investigate three classes of optical sensors, including label-free sensors, fluorescent quantum dot sensors, and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy sensors. All three of our sensor architectures are based on optical ring resonators, a relatively new technology platform utilizing the resonating modes of light in micro-sized dielectric objects. We will be working towards the ultimate goal of applying the ring resonator sensing technology for the detection of circulating tumor cells. Accomplishing this would offer medical practitioners a simple tool for earlier detection of cancer, as well as the capability to monitor treatment progress more effectively. We have assembled an excellent collection of project sponsors and collaborators to assist in accomplishing this aggressive research goal, as well as to support me in my mentored career development. Relevance: The technological advances resulting from this project will enable new applications not possible today for disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Respective examples include the detection of trace amounts of biomarkers for early disease diagnosis, the detection of small molecules for drug design, and the identification of single DNA nucleotides for advancing the possibilities with DNA studies.