I-Corps: Hollow Metal Nanoparticles: Improving the Sensitivity of Lateral Flow Assays

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to enable new and improved lateral flow assays (LFAs) through the development of hollow metal nanoparticles as highly sensitive color labels. LFAs are commonly used in environmental monitoring, food safety testing, and point-of-care clinical diagnostics (the most common example is the home pregnancy test). The company?s core technology will improve the performance of the active component in LFA devices, translating to faster and more accurate diagnoses, more timely treatment regimens, and decreased health care costs for patients and providers worldwide. These advantages should prove especially important in resource-constrained settings where access to established laboratories equipped with expensive instrumentation is cost- or time-prohibitive. Thus, the improvement and expansion of rapid, affordable, LFA point-of-care diagnostic platforms represent a critical need and will have broad impacts in public health on a global scale. Moreover, with the growing adoption of nanotechnology throughout industry, there is rapidly increasing demand for intentionally designed nanostructures in a wide range of applications ranging from chemical catalysis to optoelectronics. Securing a foothold in the LFA industry will establish the infrastructure necessary to diversify the company?s product distribution into other industries that could also benefit from the advantages of hollow metal nanoparticles. This I-Corps project will explore commercial opportunities for hollow metal nanoparticles. Hollow nanoparticles have substantial advantages over their solid counterparts, including lower mass per particle for reduced material costs, higher surface-area-to-volume ratio for increased loading, and enhanced plasmonic performance. The company?s primary technology is the highly uniform synthesis of hollow metal nanoparticles with predetermined dimensions, surface morphology, optical response, and metal composition. Currently, most conventional LFAs use 30-40 nm solid gold particles, which suffer from low capture rate and low visual contrast. In order to improve the sensitivity of these devices, we have developed more advanced nanostructures which will be captured more effectively and provide greater contrast. Implementing robust customer discovery will enable us to determine the extent of product customization that would be most useful to this target industry. Successfully making this determination and subsequently commercializing the company?s technology would enable LFAs with greater sensitivity, opening the door for platform expansion to previously undetectable diseases and toxins. Moreover, through the company?s immersion into customer discovery and business model canvas principles, we will become experts in the Lean LaunchPad methodology and can then apply this methodology to future target customer segments. 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.