NANOSPAD - Protein microarray for enhanced diagnostics at low cost by integration of new technological developments (FP6-IST) (2005-11-22) (»add to infobox)

Sergio COVA, Aidan MCGUIRE, Gabriel PELTRE, Marcella CHIARI, Roberto BIASI, Stephan SCHEURER, Christophe MARQUETTE, Michael LOUGHRAN

POLITECNICO DI MILANO (ITC45 - Milano) (Italy), BLUE FOUNTAIN SYSTEMS LIMITED (UK840 - Merseyside) (Great Britain), CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE (CNRS) (FR101 - Paris) (France), CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE (IT205 - Milano) (Italy), MICROGATE S.R.L. (NoRegion - NoRegion) (Italy), PAUL-EHRLICH-INSTITUT (BUNDESAMT FUER SERA UND IMPFSTOFFE) (DE716 - Darmstadt-Dieburg) (Germany), UNIVERSITE CLAUDE BERNARD LYON 1 (FR716 - Rhône) (France), UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, CORK (IE025 - South-West (IRL)) (Ireland)

NANOSPAD aims to develop a highly sensitive system for rapid analysis of protein microarrays, with compact size and features suitable for use by general practitioners. It will represent a demonstration of a methodology suitable in general to the rapidly growing field of proteomics and will be validated in allergy diagnostics (serum allergen-specific IgE). NANOSPAD is focused on miniaturization as an effective way of achieving improved performance for analytical methods. It will therefore pursue new developments in diversified technologies: optoelectronics, microelectronics, microfluidics, surface chemistry, chemiluminescence and electrochemiluminescence. A new monolithic matrix detector of Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPAD) will be developed in silicon microelectronic technology, with each element capable of detecting single optical photons with high quantum efficiency and low noise and number of elements matched to the number of spots in a microarray. This detector will be the base for the design and fabrication of a prototype of compact analytical apparatus, where the detector elements must be conjugated to the spots of the microarray and various electronic, optical, mechanical and microfluidic subsystems must efficiently interact. New coating techniques will be established for the surface of the microarray substrates (glass, silicon, ITO) with polymers for specific bonding of target proteins. Chemiluminescent and electro-luminescent labels will be developed, aiming to enable highly sensitive measurement of serum IgE and avoid problems associated with laser excitation of fluorescent probes. Dedicated software will be developed for making possible easy and efficient operation of the apparatus by general practitioners and for a better understanding, evaluation and dissemination of the data obtained by exploiting ICT facilities. NANOSPAD will create and maintain a website, will carry out a market study and will elaborate an exploitation plan.

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