SBIR Phase I: Portable Amplification-free Virus Nucleic Acid Detector

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）一期项目旨在开发用于医疗诊断的光流体技术。光流技术是集成光学与微流控技术在单芯片系统中的结合。因此，光流体器件在创造新型生物医学器件方面具有巨大的潜力。各种有前途的方法，包括光流体环形谐振器，等离子体纳米孔膜，或纳米级光子晶体谐振器已经被探索。另一种可能是依靠在流体通道中检测分子目标，流体通道也可以引导光线。这种结构有可能产生完全独立的、便携式的平面检测系统。在这个项目中，我们将优化和临床验证这种光流体通道结构，以使其成为下一代诊断的可行候选者。该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于，它将产生一个商业上可行的检测平台，用于准确和快速的即时病原体检测。传染病每年给金融和医疗保健行业带来的巨大负担，以及发生大规模流行病或生物恐怖主义袭击的可能性，都表明了这种需求。拟议的工作将产生一个快速、准确和广泛适用的病原体检测平台，可以在医院、医生办公室、机场、海港、边境口岸、邮局、农场以及最终的家庭中进行管理。此外，所提出的工作将通过扩展完全独立的平面光流体波导器件的能力，为新兴的光流体领域做出重要贡献。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is aimed at developing optofluidic technology for medical diagnostics. Optofluidics describes the combination of integrated optics with microfluidics in a single chip scale system. As such, optofluidic devices have great potential to create novel biomedical devices. Various promising approaches including optofluidic ring resonators, plasmonic nanohole membranes, or nanoscale photonic crystal resonators have been explored. Another possibility is to rely on the detection of molecular targets within a fluidic channel that also guides light. Such structures have the potential to result in fully self-contained, portable, planar detection systems. In this project, we will optimize and clinically validate such optofluidic channel structures to establish them as viable candidates for next-generation diagnostics.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is that it will result in a commercially viable detection platform for accurate and rapid point-of-care pathogen detection. This need is evident by the huge burden infectious diseases put on the financial and healthcare industries annually, and the potential for overwhelming pandemics or bioterrorism attacks. The proposed work will result in a rapid, accurate and broadly applicable pathogen detector platform that can be administered, for example, at hospitals, doctor offices, airports, seaports, border crossings, post offices, farms and eventually the home. In addition, the proposed work will make important contributions to the emerging field of optofluidics by expanding the capabilities of fully self-contained, planar optofluidic waveguide devices.