Aptasensor Construction for Detection of Biological Contaminants**

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Vital Biosciences (formerly Elucid Labs) is a Canadian biotechnology company located in Waterloo, Ontario, that develops point-of-care biosensor platforms for detection of biomarkers in biological fluids to overcome limitations in ubiquitously employed analytical methods and improve medical data acquisition, transmission time, as well as the overall patient experience. In this NSERC Engage application, Vital, with the cooperation of Dr. Manderville's laboratory at the University of Guelph (UOG), will endeavor to incorporate DNA aptamers into an existing antibody-based assay design by using immobilization strategies and advanced nanoscience to construct a general aptasensor platform. This project will focus on aptamer immobilization onto nanoparticles to enable in situ filtration and concentration of target molecules, plasmonic signal enhancement strategies, label free target acquisition and assay miniaturization. The binding of target molecules must be accompanied by a detectable signal change on a benchtop device at relevant concentrations, and must work with a very small (uL) amount of sample to demonstrate project success. This ENGAGE project has two major research objectives: (1) establish if aptamers can be incorporated in Vital's currently developed technology, and (2) employ assay components and functionalization techniques on aptasensors to expand their utility into complex matrices and potentially develop novel assay systems. To accomplish these goals, aptamers already established for thrombin (model protein target) and ochratoxin A (OTA, model small molecule target) will be modified with linking components for nanomaterial attachment and fluorescent dyes as the optical readout for target binding. Successful development of this system will cause continual diversification of the Vital commercial portfolio which, in turn, will lead to new revenue streams and company growth within South Western Ontario.