Multiplexed Molecular Analysis

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Invention Summary: Capability of detecting multiple protein and nucleic acid biomarkers is crucial to disease diagnosis and precision medicine. Barcoding of microparticles is one of the most common approaches for enabling multiplexed molecular assays. Although optical and plasmonic methods for barcoding particles have been developed, instrumentations involved are often bulky and expansive, preventing portability. Dr. Javanmard at Rutgers University has developed a novel system for portable, multiplexing biosensing applications. The multiplexing capability is achieved through the use of a newly developed nanoelectronic barcoding technology. Tunable nanocapacitors are surface coated onto microparticles to define their frequency dependent dielectric properties. When used in a multi-frequency cytometry measurement-based multiplexed molecular assay, nanocapacitor-coated microparticles with different dielectric properties can produce signature impedance measurements correlated to each microparticle. Together with special signal processing algorithms, identity of each microparticle can be accurately determined. These nanoelectronically barcoded microparticles can be easily conjugated to peptides, antibodies and nucleic acids, and are suitable for multiplexed analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules. Adapting to this electronic barcoding system can further reduce the cost and size of the readout instrumentation, making portability a possibility for molecular analysis/diagnosis.   Market Application: Multiplex molecular assay for disease diagnosis, drug development, industrial/environmental monitoring, and protein purification, etc. Advantages •  Highly sensitive •  Low cost •  Reduced size of readout instrumentation