BioMEMS Microplate Biosensing

About

Clinicians often need to make rapid diagnoses. Where microbial infection is suspected, it typically takes days to receive lab results, at a substantial cost per test. In the absence of test results, clinicians often face pressure from patients to prescribe antibiotics, even when the illness is viral, which contributes to growing antibiotic resistance. The innovation is a next generation point-of-care biosensing device that offers order-of-magnitude improvements (in terms of cost, speed, convenience, ease-of-use) to the diagnosis of microbial infections and other diseases. The device consists of a chip reader, integrated within a computing (potentially mobile) platform, and a disposable biosensor chip fabricated using standard semiconductor techniques and embedded within a sealable well. Each chip contains a single or multiple microplates (each 100-90,000 μm2 X 1-5 μm), with each microplate coated with a single or multiple antibodies. A sample is deposited into the well, and piezoelectric actuators actuate the microplates. Piezoresistive sensors then detect differences in mass across each microplate, such as organisms binding to antibodies. Software monitors real-time changes in the mass of the microplate. An initial diagnosis is obtained when a single binding event occurs, with increased confidence over minutes or hours as more binding events occur. Various models of chip could be available, each offering a suite of related tests, such as detection of common infectious diseases, STDs, etc. The initial proposed applications are 1) distinguishing specific bacterial infections from generalised flu/cold symptoms, and 2) identifying bacterial cause of urinary tract infections. Other potential applications include continuous cell monitoring, drug discovery, water quality testing, among others. We aim to explore and initiate the commercialisation of this technology through a VC-funded spinout and/or license agreement, and seeks partners to aid in bringing the innovation to market.