This project proposes building controlled single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) arrays at the wafer scale toiobtain large arrays of nanosensor devices and use them to detect biological molecules in solutions with afocus on protein detections.
Specific aims will include, (1) Construction and testing of nanotubes/nanowiresensors with aptamer or antibody based recognition of protein via combined electronic and fluorescencedetections for and on the sensor array devices. (2) Development of bio-molecule multiplexing strategies fornanotube/nanowire sensor arrays in solution phase without drying the proteins or antibodies on the arrays toprevent protein denaturing. (3) Use both fluorescence detection and SWNT or NW transistor electricaldetection scheme to explore the pros and cons for each method. (4) Develop multiplexing methods usingelectrical and/or electrochemical control of each device in a sensor array. This will enable multiplexingwithout drying of proteins and afford high density protein nano-arrays. The spatial chemical resolution willthen be controlled electrically, an unique feature for electrically active sensors such as SWNTs andnanowires. (5) Testing of nanowire arrays with mouse serum samples. (5) Testing of nanowire arrays withhuman serum samples of cancer patients. (6) Close collaboration between nano-scientists (Dai), oncologistsand clinic experts (Felsher, Utz). The nanosensor arrays will be closed compared with existing proteinmicro-array technology to identify key advantages of nanosensors and develop nanoscale tools and sensingplatforms that can solve key problems in microarrays. We expect the advantages will include electricalcontrol of chemical immobilization and multiplexing, high density, arraying without drying for proteins andelectrical transistor sensing scheme. The bio-functionalized nanotube-sensor chips will be used for detectingantibody-antigen binding, ligand- or peptide-protein binding. The specific systems that will be used for thenanosensor development will be streptavidin with biotin for year 1, tenascin-C with aptamer and antibodyprobes for year 2-3 and Her-kinase patterns with aptamter and antibody probes for year 3-5. In comparisonto nanowire sensing research in other groups, the key uniqueness of our project is that first, we are inclusiveof using optical fluorescence detection for nanosensors in addition to electrical detection. We will use theelectrical degree of freedom for biomolecular multiplexing and sensing. Secondly, we have proteinmicroarray expert in our team and the outcome of our research project will be to enable a nanotechnologysignificantly more advanced than the current micro-arrays. Thirdly, we will use large numbers of nanotubesand nanowires for each sensor site in the array to build redundancy, reduce background noise and optimizesensitivity. All of the reported nanowire sensors thus far use a single nanowire for each sensing site and hashigh noise and low stability.
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