Commercialization of Magneto-Nanosensor Immunoassay Platform for Cancer Diagnosis

描述(由申请人提供)：这个项目寻求优化一种有前途的磁纳米传感器技术，用于癌症诊断。通过采用计算机磁盘驱动器行业的通用技术，这个简单的设备使研究人员能够同时检测生物液中超低浓度的多个蛋白质或生物标记物。其中几种生物标志物的丰度和随时间的变化，当综合在一起时，可以成为一种强大的诊断工具。目前，测量这些生物标志物所需的工具，如质谱仪或ELISA免疫分析，速度慢、成本高、难以使用，而且往往不太具有重复性。此外，许多有趣的生物标志物存在于如此低的浓度，以至于除了最复杂和复杂的方法之外，根本无法用任何方法来检测它们。正在开发的技术结合了高灵敏度、易用、快速定量和低成本的优点。这些显著的改进在一定程度上是由于使用了极灵敏的巨磁电阻(GMR)传感器，还因为血液样本中没有天然的磁信号源，导致背景信号非常低。此外，这些传感器已经被修改为只检测那些实际上与传感器结合的磁性纳米颗粒标签-漂浮在附近的未结合的标签几乎完全被忽略。这意味着，与大多数其他检测技术不同，没有必要去除多余的标签来确定结果。这使得分析可以部分或完全无需洗涤，这再次大大提高了灵敏度和易用性。此外，由于信号是传感器电阻的简单变化，因此不需要激光或复杂的光学元件。这意味着辅助仪器可以非常简单且具有成本效益。研究人员最初将重点放在肺癌上，因为目前还没有有效的方法来早期发现这种疾病，研究人员正试图验证一组与无症状肺癌相关的六个生物标志物。长期目标是拥有一种诊断测试，使医生能够在患者仍处于I期并面临70%-80%的存活率时对他们进行诊断，而不是目前的情况，即大多数患者直到达到IIIB或IV期才得到诊断，面临的生存机会不到10%。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project seeks to optimize a promising magneto-nanosensor technology for use in cancer diagnosis. By adapting a common technology from the computer disk drive industry, this simple device enables researchers to simultaneously detect multiple proteins, or biomarkers, at ultra low concentrations in biological fluids. The abundance and change over time of several of these biomarkers, when taken together, can be a powerful diagnostic tool. At this time, the tools required to measure these biomarkers, such as mass spectrometry or ELISA immunoassays, are slow, expensive, difficult to use, and often not very reproducible. In addition, many interesting biomarkers are present at such low concentrations that they simply cannot be detected with any but the most sophisticated and involved methods. The technology under development combines the advantages of high sensitivity, ease of use, rapid quantification, and low cost. These drastic improvements are possible in part due to the use of extremely sensitive giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors, and also because there are no natural magnetic signal sources in a blood sample, which results in a very low background signal. Additionally, these sensors have been modified to detect only those magnetic nanoparticle labels which are actually bound to the sensors - unbound labels floating nearby are almost completely ignored. That means that, unlike most other assay technologies, it is not necessary to remove the excess labels to determine the result. This allows the assay to be partially or completely wash-free, which again greatly increases the sensitivity and ease of use. Furthermore, no laser or complex optics are required because the signal is a simple change in electrical resistance of the sensor. This means that the ancillary instrumentation can be very simple and cost-efficient. With an initial focus on lung cancer, where there are no effective methods for early detection of the disease, researchers are attempting to validate a panel of six biomarkers that have been associated with asymptomatic lung cancer. The long term goal is to have a diagnostic test that allows doctors to diagnose patients when they are still in Stage I and face survival rates of 70-80%, as opposed today's situation where most patients don't get diagnosed until they reach Stage IIIB or IV and face less than a 10% chance of survival.