SBIR-STTR Award

Our innovation is a low cost, sensitive, quantitative biosensor that can detect many biomarkers on the same chip. Our sensor consists of vertically aligned silicon nanowires. The silicon nanowires’ high surface area to volume ratio makes them sensitive to the environment around them and can thus lead to high sensitivity detection. Each of the nanowires can be functionalized to be sensitive to either specific DNA or proteins. For Phase 1 of this SBIR, we will apply our already demonstrated biosensor to monitoring HCPs in biomanufacturing. In particular, we will functionalize our silicon nanowires to be sensitive to Escherichia coli (E. coli) HCPs. As a first step we will measure a conglomerate of HCPs that are present in potential product, but eventually we will separate the antibodies and measure each protein in a separate sub-sensor.

Our biosensor is made of silicon nanowire arrays functionalized with antibodies to measure the concentration of specific proteins. In this grant we will take a sensor that has been demonstrated for use in measuring a set of generic host cell proteins and we will apply the sensor to measure a set of proteins for a specific cell line. In doing so, we will demonstrate the utility of our sensor to be used as a cell line-specific platform for biomanufacturers who require custom sensors to measure host cell proteins for their specific cell lines. We will then make a portable system, including both the hardware and software, and bring it to a biomanufacturer’s line to do measurements side by side with ELISA tests. Lastly, we will teach their staff to run measurements using our sensors and system and use their feedback to write a manual for use.