Collaborative Research: A Point-of-Care Device for Diagnosis and Management of Pulmonary Diseases

肺癌是癌症相关死亡的最常见原因。症状，如发烧或疲劳，是不特定的，而其他指标是许多其他疾病的典型特征。开发一种可靠的技术，在尽可能早的阶段检测肺癌，对成功的结果至关重要。几种相互竞争的技术证明了它们诊断中晚期肺癌的能力，但未能检测早期癌症，这大大降低了它们的效用。本项目将合成一套与早期肺癌相关的新型光学生物传感器和指示器。这种新型非侵入性、成本效益高、可靠的筛查工具的开发将对整个肺癌预防领域产生革命性的影响。该团队将通过专注于一组生物标志物（基质金属蛋白酶和组织蛋白酶）来实现技术原理验证，这些生物标志物已被证明可成功检测1期非小细胞肺癌（NSCLC），这是最常见的肺癌形式。一种集成的微流体装置将被开发来处理一种新型的纳米生物传感器，用于检测大量的酶。该设备将首先根据从动物模型中收集的样本进行优化，然后再根据从人类患者中收集的样本进行优化。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death. Symptoms, such as fever or fatigue, are unspecific while other indicators are typical of many other diseases. Development of a reliable technique that detects lung cancer at the earliest possible stage, is critical for successful outcomes. Several competing techniques demonstrated their ability to diagnose intermediate and late stage lung cancer, but failed to detect early stage cancer which significantly decreases their utility. This project will synthesize a set of novel optical biosensors and indicators that have been implicated in early stage lung cancer. The development of this novel non-invasive, cost effective, and reliable screening tool would be transformative for the whole field of lung cancer prevention. The team will achieve technical proof-of-principle by focusing on a set of biomarkers (matrix metalloproteinases and cathepsins) that have been shown to be successful in detecting stage 1 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of lung cancer. An integrated microfluidic device will be developed to handle a new class of nano-biosensors designed to detect a large number of enzymes. The panel of biomarkers that will be detected by the proposed device will be optimized based on samples collected from animal models first, and human patients later. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteriaThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.