I-Corps: Low-cost photothermal nanosensors for quantitative biomarker detection using a thermometer

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of new, low-cost, portable biomarker detection methods in response to the growing market of biomolecular detectors for various applications such as disease diagnosis and cancer biomarker detection at the point of care. For example, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States.

It is estimated that 191,930 new cases and 33,330 deaths from this disease will occur this year. However, the current technologies for prostate cancer diagnosis are invasive, and require expensive instrumentation, which significantly impairs their capacity for point-of-care (POC) detection in low-resource settings such as physician’s offices or at a patient’s bedside.

The proposed photothermal nanobiosensor uses a thermometer for quantitative biosensing. The nanobiosensor is rapid, low-cost, minimally invasive, and does not require expensive equipment and trained personnel for data recording and processing; This may enable prostate-specific antigen (PSA, a prostate cancer biomarker) testing in small physician’s offices.

The thermometer-based nanobiosensor also may be used to detect a variety of other disease biomarkers and biochemicals.

This I-Corps project is based on the development of the thermometer-based nanosensor for point-of-care (POC) detection of biomarkers such as the prostate-specific antigen (PSA). The innovation is based on a biosensing method using a thermometer as the signal reader. The thermometer-based nanobiosensor is not only rapid, low-cost, and portable, but also minimizes instrumentation requirements.

In addition, the nanobiosensor offers comparable detection sensitivity to conventional immunoassay methods. The proposed photothermal immunosensor may open up new opportunities for affordable detection of disease biomarkers.

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.