Idea to Innovation Phase 1: Development of stable, field-deployable silver-based surface plasmon resonance biosensors

金被广泛用作生物传感材料，因为它是生物相容的，抗氧化的，并且具有大的表面等离子体（SPR）效应，这是用于检测生物分子的常用方法。然而，黄金是所有贵金属中最昂贵的，其提取对环境具有高度破坏性。银和铜比金便宜几个数量级，并且在基于SPR的生物传感中分别具有更高或相似的灵敏度。然而，这些金属没有被广泛使用，主要是由于生物分子与银和铜的界面连接困难，以及这些金属对氧化的敏感性。值得注意的是，银具有比金大得多的SPR效应，这将使其不仅更便宜，而且在基于SPR的生物传感中更灵敏。如本文所述，我们将设计基于银和铜的生物传感器，其通过利用Crudden和Horton实验室的最新发现而容易与生物分子接合并且抗氧化。这些新的生物传感器将大大降低成本，并提高SPR生物传感可用于护理点诊断的可能性，因为银或铜基传感器芯片将是一次性的。有效的银或铜SPR芯片还将在消耗品成本成为问题的地区开辟新的市场，例如南美和印度的新兴市场。Affinité Instruments是一家加拿大SPR系统制造商，也是我们技术的潜在客户，他们对低成本生物传感器的开发非常感兴趣，因为他们的主要关注领域是即时诊断，而目前的传感器在这个市场上价格过高。我们实验室目前的技术还不足以让这家公司或其他潜在客户进行评估，但有了这笔赠款，我们将能够充分推进这项技术，开始与潜在客户进行产品评估。BioNavis是一家位于芬兰的潜在客户，对SPR的替代金属有着广泛的兴趣，也同意支持这一提议，并对扩大本文提议的非金基生物传感器市场的可能性充满热情。

Gold is widely employed as a material for biosensing since it is biocompatible, resistant to oxidation, and has a large surface plasmon (SPR) effect, which is the common method used to detect biomolecules. However, gold is the most expensive of all noble metals and its extraction is highly damaging to the environment. Silver and copper are orders of magnitude cheaper than gold and have a higher or similar sensitivities in SPR-based biosensing, respectively. However, these metals are not widely employed due primarily to difficulties interfacing biomolecules with silver and copper, and the sensitivity of these metals to oxidation. It is notable that silver has a substantially greater SPR effect than gold, which would make it not just cheaper but also much more sensitive in SPR-based biosensing. As described herein, we will design biosensors based on silver and copper that are easily interfaced with biomolecules and are resistant to oxidation by taking advantage of recent discoveries in the Crudden and Horton labs. These new biosensors will dramatically decrease costs and improve the likelihood that SPR biosensing could be used in point-of-care diagnostics since silver or copper-based sensor chips would be disposable. Effective silver or copper SPR chips will also open up new markets in areas where consumable costs are an issue, such as emerging markets in South America and India. Affinité Instruments, a Canadian manufacturer of SPR systems and a potential customer of our technology, is very much interested in the development of low-cost biosensors as their primary area of focus is point-of-care diagnostics and current sensors are prohibitively priced for this market. The current technology from our lab is not at a sufficiently advanced level for evaluation by this company or other potential customers, but with funds from this grant, we will be able to advance the technology sufficiently to start product evaluations with potential customers. BioNavis, a potential customer based in Finland with extensive interest in alternative metals for SPR have also agreed to support this proposal and are enthusiastic about the possibility of expanding the market for non-gold-based biosensors as proposed herein.**