This project focuses on creating an enabling technology for an emerging group of healthcare related research interests that need low cost, high performance equipment for imaging ultra low light levels. This instrumentation will be particularly beneficial to cancer research, but other areas of inquiry will also benefit. Specific researchers application areas include studying gene activity in living cells; luminenescence based assays for Ca++, 02-, and NO; luminescence based DNA hybridization; single molecule detection; low light spectroscopy; high throughput screening; bacteria detection; and luminescent gene chip detection. The technology is a low cost, stand-alone detector subsystem that will be capable of imaging single photon events. This detector system is based on an Avalanche Photodiode structure and has the potential to outperform cooled, back thinned CCDs in certain applications. It also has the potential to be a superior choice over intensified CCDs, photomultiplier tubes, and the expensive imaging photon detector systems that are commercially available today.
Markets for the device to be developed in this project and for instruments based on the device are estimated to be in the range of $20-50 million per year. Commercial applications include: instruments to serve researchers in academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and biotechnology companies; clinical assays; as well as diagnostic systems for the food industry.
