Development of nanostructured biosensors for the detection of metabolites

Cancer poses a large and growing impact on the Canadian population and health care system. Developing technologies for accurate diagnosis of cancer in the early stage will decrease cancer mortality rates. Specific and sensitive detection of cancer biomarkers for point-of-care diagnostics applications has been a challenging goal for a long time in clinical diagnostics for decades. One of the reasons behind the limited commercial success of biosensors in complex biological samples is the high susceptibility of the sensing elements to biological fouling. To address these challenges the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) technology along with the antifouling coating will be used in this project to make the biosensor selective toward the cancer biomarkers. We propose the development of an electrochemical biosensor for selective detection of cancer-related metabolites (e.g.Hippuric acid (HA)) for the colorectal cancer diagnosis. The proposed biosensor contains an array of gold electrodes coated with a nanocomposite containing gold NPs, MIP NPs, and bovine serum albumin, and binding polymers. The mechanical, chemical and physical properties of the nanocomposite will be studied by analytical instruments such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.

Faculty Supervisor:

David S Wishart

Student:

Partner:

Harvard University

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Alberta

Program: