SBIR Phase I: Development of an Optical Biosensor to Facilitate Screening, Validation, and Development of Novel Drugs and their Biological Targets

这一小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响将改善药物发现。拟议的项目将推动表面等离子体共振(SPR)的发展，这是一种新型的光学生物传感器技术，将加快学术界以及制药和生物技术行业药物筛选活动的速度和效率。目前，市场上还没有一种生物传感器技术能够提供高灵敏度、强大的可重用性、抗体样结合亲和力和低成本的组合。该项目最终将开发一种用于大规模应用的技术和试剂盒。这项拟议的项目推进了一项技术，该技术利用了一种温度、pH和化学稳定的专有蛋白，该蛋白由两个片段组成，具有抗体样的亲和力和特异性。这项技术已被证明在各种类似抗体的应用中是有效的，但没有困扰传统抗体的稳定性缺陷。通过克服限制SPR芯片大规模使用的关键障碍，该技术使芯片能够重复使用，并简化了实验室工作流程，从而使该系统在以抗体为中心的应用中具有广泛的实用价值。该项目有三个目标：建立该技术对分子相互作用对的完整表征的适用性，评估该技术的稳健性和通用性，并在药物筛选活动中验证该技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will improve drug discovery. The proposed project will advance the development of Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), a novel optical biosensor technology, that will accelerate the pace and efficiency of drug screening campaigns in academia as well as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. There are currently no biosensor technologies on the market that offer the combination of high sensitivity, robust reusability, antibody-like binding affinity, and low cost. This project will culminate in the development of a technology and reagent-based kits for applications at scale. The proposed project advances a technology engineered from a temperature, pH, and chemically stable proprietary protein composed of two fragments that bind with antibody-like affinity and specificity. The technology has been demonstrated to be effective in a variety of antibody-like applications, but without the stability shortcomings that plague traditional antibodies. By overcoming key barriers that limit large-scale use of SPR chips, this technology enables chip reuse and streamlines laboratory workflows, thus endowing the system with broad utility in antibody-centered applications. The project has three goals: establish suitability of the technology for the complete characterization of molecular interaction pairs, evaluate the technology’s robustness and versatility, and validate the technology in drug screening campaigns.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 criteria.