STTR Phase I: Novel Materials for a PicoCalorimeter Biological Application

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）第一阶段项目是hypes和纽约州奥尔巴尼大学纳米科学与工程学院之间的合作成果，该项目提议用一种比传统设备更快、更敏感、更便宜的微机械生物热计来彻底改变微热测量领域。该设备将具有一个或多个蚀刻在硅芯片上的样品空间。与早期的微机械量热计不同，高灵敏度是在空气中获得的，而不需要周围的真空，这使得新设备非常适合研究细胞代谢。总体研究目标是引入创新，优化和完善我们的？PicoCalorimeter吗?与其他生物测量相结合，设计获得100皮瓦的灵敏度。这项研究的更广泛的影响是细胞代谢的测量，药物对特定细胞类型的作用的鉴定，以及蛋白质折叠，结构转变和其他生物现象的研究。提出的努力引入了一种全新类型的微热量计，具有一系列创新功能，可以实现现在不可能实现的测量。高灵敏度将使检测到比以往更小的样本量，从而加快了准备和研究许多生物反应的时间。除了细胞代谢、酶功能、功能基因组学等方面的基础研究外，拟议的一次性“picocaloriometer”将在药物开发和评估以及液体样品中各种毒素的检测方面具有重要的商业应用。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project, a collaborative effort between HYRPES and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany, NY, proposes to revolutionize the field of microcalorimetry with a micromachined biocalorimeter that is faster than conventional devices, more sensitive and inexpensive enough to be disposable. The device will feature one or more sample spaces etched into a silicon chip. Unlike earlier micromachined calorimeters, the high sensitivity is obtained in air, and without the need of a surrounding vacuum, making the new device ideal for studies of cellular metabolism. The overall research objectives are to introduce innovations that optimize and refine our ?PicoCalorimeter? designs to obtain 100 pico-Watt sensitivities in combination with other biological measurements. The broader impacts of this research are the measurement of cell metabolism, the identification of drug effects on specific cell types, and the study of protein folding, structural transitions and other biological phenomena. The proposed effort introduces a totally new type of microcalorimeter with a set of innovative features enabling measurements that are now impossible. The high sensitivity will enable the detection of much smaller sample volumes than ever before, thereby accelerating the time to prepare and investigate many biological reactions. Besides basic research in cellular metabolism, enzyme function, functional genomics, and others, the proposed disposable "PicoCalorimeters" will have a major commercial application to drug development and evaluation, and the detection of a wide range of toxins in liquid samples.