Biochip-images · A Breast Cancer Biomarker Point of CarePOCDiagnostic Platform Integrating Dual-Functionalized Nanoparticle for Magnetic Gradient Ranking and Electrochemical Sensing

Breast cancer is the most common neoplasm in women and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in females worldwide, with 25.1% of incidence and 14.7% of mortality across all cancers. A convenient blood-based tumor marker test has the potential to underpin a significant improvement in early intervention.In this context, this proposal is concerned with development of a new point of care (POC) device for biomarker detection by exploiting a combination of state of the art magnetophoresis, electroanalysis, nanotechnology, and microfluidic integration. In the POC device, dual-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles (dual-NPs) with antibodies and redox probes will be capable of selectively recruiting specific markers from real patient samples and will additionally underpin amplified redox probes for detection. Second, using a magnetic gradient chip, composed of both magnetic gradient (Mag) and microelectrode (Me) arrays, the exerted magnetic gradient field will be capable of separating dual-NPs labeling biomarkers (MBs) from free dual-NPs (MPs) to be positioned at distinct sensing zone of micro-electrode, prior to assay. Herein, only those biomarkers hosted by dual-NPs, will be reported electrochemically for quantification.Three primary objectives are proposed by the candidate: i) development of dual-NPs combining immunological recognition and electrochemical amplification properties, ii) fabrication of Mag chip engineering Mag and Me arrays for magnetic gradient ranking and electrochemical sensing, iii) integration of POC platform with Mag and Me arrays, dual-NPs and microchannels, for cancer biomarker diagnosis.As a proof-of-concept, the developed POC device will be applied to the detection and quantification of breast cancer markers (CA15-3, PAI-1 and HSP90A) in a small (<20µL) blood serum. The detection limit of this device is expected to be ng/ml quantities and duration is estimated to 15 mins for each test with blood serum.