Nanosensor for Metabolome Screening

			Personnel Ron Davis AmirAli H. Talasaz Mohsen Nemat-Gorgani Mostafa Ronaghi Henrik Persson Saharnaz Bigdeli Collaborators Fabian Pease Juan Santiago

Nanotechnology is widely viewed as the most significant technological frontier currently being explored. In this project, we will take advantage of recent advances of silicon proccessing in making nanometer features, sensitive signal detection and surface chemistry to measure the catalytic activity of biological molecules in real-time. The specificity of the proposed system relies on unique selectivity of enzymes, a product of nature that has evolved more than a billion years. Specific enzymes will be immobilized in nanochannels to measure concentration of metabolites (chemicals acting as substrates for enzymes) in biological fluids by electrical detection of the enzyme conformational changes during catalytic activities. Knowledge achieved from this project may allow an integrated high-throughput nanotechnology-enabled sensor platform to be made employing direct electrical detection of metabolites in a label-free, highly multiplexed format ver a broad dynamic range.

Impact/Significance

• Provides a powerful new tool for gaining insight into functional biology
• Currently earmarked by the NIH roadmap initiative
• Useful fr studies of drug toxicity, drug efficacy and model organisms, as well as humans and plants

Accomplishments

• Nanopore fabrication on thin gold/silicon nitride membrane
• Surface chemistry optimization for enzyme immobilization