The long term objective of this research is to develop a microfluidics-based immunosensor for steroid hormone detection. Steroid hormones are chemicals secreted by the "steroid" glands - the adrenal cortex, the testes and the ovaries. Cortisol will be the focus of this work, but the microfluidics-based immunosensor will be applicable to the broad class of steroid hormones and, in particular, estrogen. It has been shown that cortisol levels elevate in response to stress. Cortisol level can be measured in saliva; results typically are available about one week after a sample is collected. Microfluidics, however, holds the potential for immediate results.
Intellectual Merit: The investigation will fuse microfluidics, a technology for performing complex manipulations on small amounts of fluids, with fluorescence-based immunosensors. Currently only limited work is conducted using "real" salivary samples. This is partly because many of the antigens are not expected to be found in real samples, but also due to the fact that the sensors can exhibit variability. The exploratory nature of this work is to measure steroid hormones in salivary samples without control samples; commercial examples such as the glucose sensor. This project is to address the issue of sensor variability and incorporate a new detection scheme to facilitate the development of a sensor that is simple, portable and capable of multi-analyte analysis.
Broader Impacts: This work will benefit society by expanding the scientific community's understanding about steroid hormones and how to detect them in physiological and environmental samples, thereby leading to the development of practical stress measurement devices.
This Small Grant for Exploratory Research project will directly impact Tuskegee's effort to stay current with trends in chemical engineering education.
