सेंसिंग, डायग्नोस्टिक्स और ड्रग डिलीवरी

Conventional assays require a time-consuming processing step for isolating biomarkers or employ specialized equipment with sophisticated analysis techniques for biomarker identification, thereby limiting their adoption for high throughput. We are interested in developing an array-based sensing approach, called “chemical nose”, to efficiently discriminate between various diseases. For example, in our strategy, we combined surface-functionalized gold nanoparticle (AuNP) receptors with color-coded DNA transducers to generate an integrated sensor array that responds to various analytes via differential interactions. This strategy simultaneously generated multi-channel fluorescence output for analyte identification via a machine learning algorithm. We have employed this ability of the sensor to rapidly identify cancer cells from a pool of normal cells. This study demonstrated that this sensor array excels in the rapid identification of subtle changes in a complex mixture and thus will be well suited for point-of-care clinical diagnosis, high-throughput drug screening, or predicting the outcome of the therapeutic intervention.

To maintain drug concentration within the therapeutic window, drug delivery systems (DDSs) were developed. DDSs are engineered to deliver drugs in response to a stimulus leading to regulated and on-demand drug presentation. We are interested in developing a dynamic drug delivery scaffold based on a macrocyclic host and functionalized gold nanoparticle (AuNP) guest with the programmed response towards bioorthogonal small guest molecule or other disease-specific cues.