Biophotonic devices for sample-to-answer biomarker analysis

本提案将设计一种光流体多功能系统，允许对样品进行预分析操作，以去除可能干扰分析的成分。利用目标分析物的核酸和抗体，在存在其他病毒的情况下检测各种引起感染的病毒的存在。该设备将在芯片上设计，很少有关于目标样品内容的先验信息。这是一个样本到答案的系统，其中开发的芯片将可用于各种尚未确定的诊断任务。这个目标是一个巨大的飞跃，从目前的目标专用诊断芯片到通用诊断芯片，在不牺牲灵敏度、选择性、易用性和成本的情况下，具有尽可能广泛的应用。具体目标是开发一种多波长波导，为生物标志物的激发提供多源。第二个目标是在芯片上开发样品制备部分。这项工作的最后努力将通过在存在其他病毒的情况下同时使用核酸和寨卡病毒生物标志物来检测寨卡病毒，从而证明该方法的高灵敏度和选择性。目前的提案是由加州大学圣克鲁兹分校电子工程物理学家、现任PI和杨百翰大学霍金斯小组长期合作的结果。建议书中详细介绍了以往的合作成果，并得到了社区内外的广泛认可。

This proposal will devise an optofluidic versatile system that will allow pre-analysis manipulation of the sample for removing components that might interfere with the analysis. Using nucleic acids of the target analyte along and with antibodies to detect the presence of a variety of infection-causing viruses in the presence other viruses. The device will be engineered on chips with little a-priori information on the content of the target sample. This is the sample-to-answer system where the developed chip would be available for a variety of yet underdetermined diagnostic tasks. This goal is a quantum leap from the current target-dedicated diagnostics on a chip to the all-purpose diagnostic chip with as broad an application as possible without sacrificing capabilities of sensitivity, selectivity, ease of use and cost. The specific objectives are to develop a multi-wavelength waveguide that will provide a multi-source for excitation of biomarkers. A second objective is to develop a sample preparation section on the chip. The final effort in this work will demonstrate the high sensitivity and selectivity of the approach by detecting the Zika virus using both, nucleic acid and biomarkers for the virus in the presence other viruses. The present proposal evolves from a long standing collaboration between the present PI, a physicist in Electrical Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, and a the Hawkins group at BYU. The previous achievements of the collaboration are detailed in the proposal and has enjoyed broad recognition within the community and beyond.