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An Electrochemical Microfluide System--Lynntech, Inc., 7610 Eastmark Drive, Suite 202, College Station, TX  77840-4023; 979-693-0017

Dr Dalibor Hodko, Principal Investigator

Dr. Oliver J. Murphy, Business Official

DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-00ER83038

Amount:  $100,000

 

The medical community has a strong need for new and rapid assessment of drugs which will be highly specific, faster, more accurate, using very small volumes and sensitive to very low concentrations of analyte.  Conventional medical analysis instruments often suffer from poor detection limits, interference from other compounds and require sample preprocessing steps or derivitization.  Micro- and nano-devices have the potential to combine sampling of drugs as well as a single integrated concentration and detection step which will provide greater sensitivity than current analysis techniques.  Current microfluidic analytical systems cannot perform the functions of sampling, separation, concentration and detection that a microscale integrated circuit will be expected to in biological fluids. A new electrochemical micro/nano analytical system is proposed which will provide high specificity and sensitivity for drug monitoring in complex sample matrices such as biological fluids.  The Phase II will develop a prototype instrument and will be tested using real biological fluids as samples.  The overall objective of Phase I is to develop stable imprinted polymers specific for large size drug molecules that will also perform as recognition elements for direct detection.  The in situ detection will be tested by a direct electrochemical signal.  These functions of concentration, molecular recognition and detection will be brought together in a single microfluidics channel where the demonstration of the entire principle will be tested.  Collaborations with research teams at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will be valuable in bringing this research to the deliverable stage.

 

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:  The developed microscale device will be able to sample very small quantities of biological fluid and detect very low analyte concentrations.  This will find, apart from the application to medical toxicology, a wide range of uses in environmental and forensic analysis, food additives and preservatives and the commercial pharmaceutical industry.