The team has developed a Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) biosensor platform that incorporates elements for both separation and identification of ligase chain reaction (LCR) products for screening of Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC). This new platform is important because it can provide rapid and multiplexed detection of STEC serotypes with minimal processing. This is especially attractive to those agents in charge of controlling food-borne diseases.
There are many STEC diagnostic assays on the market but all require long detection times, and assays with improved specificity are counteracted by poor portablity. The innovation by this I-Corps team is in using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) coupled to ligase chain reaction (LCR) to prevent spectral overlap of fluorescent probe molecules. The current in vitro diagnostic market encompasses several submarkets including immunochemistry, molecular diagnostics assays, blood donor screening, hematology, hemostasis, and point-of-care (POC) testing. The infectious disease market is expected to be driven by the continued development of molecular based assays for upper-respiratory, blood, and gastro-intestinal panels. Tools are in demand that offer robust multiplexing capability, rapid time to result, and good sensitivity. Toward this end, several multiplex PCR assays have been developed for gastrointestinal pathogens but are limited to five different targets due to spectral overlap of the fluorogenic-based probes.
