Funding agency
National Science FoundationAward number
CBET-1445934Dates
July 15, 2014-December 31, 2016Description
The use of nanotechnology is enabling the development of novel nanosensors, which are able to detect different types of events at the nanoscale with unprecedented accuracy. Recently, in vivo nanosensing systems, which can operate inside the human body in real time, have been proposed as a way to provide faster and more accurate disease diagnosis and treatment than traditional technologies. For example, metallic nanoparticles, coated with Raman active reporter molecules, have been used as surface enhanced Raman scattering labels for multiplexed diagnosis and bio-detection of DNA and proteins with very high-sensing specificity. However, several fundamental limitations exist in these approaches. On the one hand, an external and bulky laser platform is needed to excite the engineered nanoparticles inside the human or animal body. Similarly, an external spectrometer is needed to measure the scattered signal. As a result, the practicality and the cost constrain the use of this sensing setup. On the other hand, the sensitivity and accuracy of existing nano-biosensing systems is limited, mainly due to the very high attenuation that the scattered signals suffer as they propagate. Raman signature signals are usually very weak compared with the laser excitation signal, and are only separated from each other by a few nanometers. Thus, a new strategy for accurate, low-cost, and real-time nano-biosensing is still needed.
The objective of the proposed research is to prove the feasibility of cooperative spec- troscopy for real-time in vivo nano-biosensing applications. The ultimate goal is to replace the external independent excitation and measurement system used in classical spectroscopy by a network of coordi- nated nano-devices, able to both excite and measure the response of nano-biofunctional particles. The benefits of this approach are several. First, the much smaller size and lower power requirements than classical spectroscopy systems will allow the integration of the proposed platform in the next generation of health-centric smartphones as well as new types of wearable devices. Second, the placement of the nano- devices almost in contact with the entity to measure on a fingerprint touch scanner or eventually inside the human body allows for the transmission and detection of low-power, low-noise signals. Third, the collection of the received signal at different nano-devices that collaborate with each other, allows for much more ac- curate sensing using advanced signal processing for distributed data collection. The focus of this two-year EAGER project is on establishing the foundations of distributed signal detection and post processing with cooperative nano-devices. Our contributions are in three main thrusts: i) Design of optical nano-antennas for efficient detection of coherent electromagnetic signals in vivo; ii) Design of nano-biofunctional particles to monitor specific biological molecules with enhanced Raman scattering signals; iii) Design of optimal and distributed data collection schemes and spectrum reconstruction algorithms based on intra-body channel modeling results.
The project is expected to pave the way for the development of in vivo nanosensor networks for biosensing applications with direct application in the next generation of health-centric smart- phones and wearable devices. This technology has the potential to radically change current disease diagnosis and treatment techniques. The idea of improving the accuracy of existing diagnostic techniques based on individual nano-biosensors by utilizing instead a distributed network of coordinated nano-devices, is transformative. Moreover, this work does not interfere with ongoing research aimed at improving the accuracy of each individual sensor, which ultimately would benefit the collective accuracy too. Importantly, this project contributes to a much wider and ambitious vision of advanced health-monitoring and drug delivery systems, using a novel interdisciplinary approach to leverage and combine the state-of-the-art in nano-biosensing and wireless communication and networks, as well as distributed data collection and signal processing. An interdisciplinary team with complementary expertise has been created to pursue the proposed research plan, and several graduate and undergraduate students will be involved.