SBIR Phase II: A Universal Protein Interaction Biosensor

Rosentiel Mel Scott 029, Waltham MA

Investigators

Abstract

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is focused on developing nanotechnology reagents and tools for the emerging field of proteomics. The technology is modular. This means that universal reagents are produced to which an end-user can, in a simple step, attach any protein or antibody for a variety of biological assays. The detection technology under development is electronic. Electronic detection can be readily multiplexed for high throughput assays. Large numbers of experiments can be simultaneously analyzed, over short periods of time, using state of the art electronics techniques like time-division multiplexing. Since the output of the technology is electronic, massive data sets can be directly transferred to bioinformatics systems for automated analysis and storage. The technology uses cheap off the shelf components coupled with proprietary state of the art, nanotechnology reagents. The speed and multiplexing capabilities of the technology make it orders of magnitude less expensive than existing or competing technologies. The technology will be tailored to the special needs of proteomics: the study of the function of the gene products, proteins. With the sequencing of the human genome nearing completion, the need for tools to facilitate the study of proteomics is a high priority near-term application. Pharmaceutical companies would use this technology to identify families of proteins that are implicated in disease and construct databases that define networks of interacting proteins to determine points of intervention and potential drug targets. End-users will prefer to use the proposed technology because it will be more cost effective, sensitive, faster and flexible enough to adapted to many user applications.