Abstract:
The primary purpose of this research is to develop an inexpensive and user friendly "point- of- care" (POC) device also known as Nanomonitor, for early disease diagnosis. Proteomics research has elucidated many new proteins as biomarkers that have the potential to greatly improve disease diagnosis. Our clinical application for this technology is the identification of the cardiovascular diseases which lead to deaths worldwide. Protein biomarker for this condition is C-Reactive Protein (CRP). We have utilized nanoporous alumina membranes to generate high surface area to volume structures for trapping protein biomolecules in Nanomonitor. We employ the protein specific capacitance measurement method as the basis for protein biomarker detection. Furthermore, the device performance parameters have been validated against the clinical gold standard: ELISA. The research objective is to measure the performance parameters (limit of detection, specificity, dynamic range and detection speed) of the Nanomonitor devices for protein biomarker based disease detection, with accuracy greater than 95%.
