STTR Phase I: Silicon nanowire arrays for the sensitive detection and identification of lung cancer by a blood sample

这个小企业技术转让(STTR)第一阶段项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是，有可能通过更敏感和更特异的癌症生物标志物检测来彻底改变癌症的治疗。仅在2014年，就有166万美国人被诊断出患有癌症，其中585,720人死亡。2011年，美国所有癌症医疗费用的总和为887亿美元。低成本、侵入性更小、更灵敏的检测器将使癌症能够更早地被发现，从而降低治疗成本并提高存活率。更高灵敏度的癌症检测将导致早期发现，实现靶向治疗，在提高生活质量的同时节省资金和生命。此外，从这项授权中学到的知识也可以应用于其他传感器，在这些传感器中，纳米线被功能化，用于检测材料。这些传感器可能包括支持物联网、污染监测和确保高水质的传感器。拟议的项目将促进我们对使用纳米线作为检测器的了解。纳米线传感器具有很高的表面积体积比。因此，与非纳米结构传感器相比，它们的检测下限大大降低，灵敏度提高。这一改进对于许多生物分析是必要的。其他人已经制造了纳米线传感器，并展示了高灵敏度。然而，他们用来制造传感器的制造技术既昂贵又缓慢。因此，他们每个传感器只能获得1-10条纳米线，制造产能很低。该项目将使用高通量和低成本的工艺，这将导致每个传感器产生数百万条纳米线。纳米线将使表面积增加一千倍以上，从而实现更灵敏的检测。该传感器没有像竞争对手那样使用水平导线，而是使用垂直排列的纳米线阵列。该装置的设计解决了接触大型纳米线阵列的典型挑战，并能够同时测量光学和电信号。拟议中的项目将测量一种与肺癌相关的商业生物标记物。此外，研究人员将在同一芯片上检测两个生物标记物，从而展示该技术如何用于测试同一芯片上的多个生物标记物。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is the possibility to revolutionize the treatment of cancer through more sensitive and specific cancer biomarker detection. 1.66 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer in 2014 alone, of which 585,720 died. The sum of all health care costs in 2011 for cancer in the US was $88.7 billion. A low cost, less invasive, and more sensitive detector will allow earlier detection of cancer and thus lower the cost of treatment and increase survival rates. Higher sensitivity cancer detection will lead to early detection, enable targeted treatment, and save money and lives while improving quality of life. In addition, the knowledge learned from this grant can be applied to other sensors in which the nanowires are functionalized for detection of materials. These sensors could include sensors to support the Internet of Things, pollution monitoring, and ensuring high water quality.The proposed project will advance our knowledge of using nanowires as detectors. Nanowire sensors have a high surface area-to-volume ratio. Thus their detection limit is dramatically lowered and their sensitivity is increased relative to non-nanostructured sensors. This improvement is necessary for many biological assays. Others have made nanowire sensors and demonstrated high sensitivity. However, the fabrication techniques they use to make their sensors are expensive and slow. Thus, they are only able to get 1-10 nanowires per sensor and manufacturing throughput is low. This project will use a high-throughput and low-cost process, and that results in millions of nanowires per sensor. The nanowires will increase the surface area by over a thousand times thus allowing for more sensitive detection. Instead of using horizontal wires like the competition, the proposed sensor uses arrays of vertically aligned nanowires. The device design solves the typical challenges of contacting large arrays of nanowires and enables the measurement of both optical and electrical signals simultaneously. The proposed project will measure a commercially relevant biomarker for lung cancer. In addition, the investigators will detect two biomarkers on the same chip, thus demonstrating how the technology can be used to test multiple biomarkers on the same chip.