Dielectrophoretic Raman Scattering Biosensor

To address the U.S. Army need for a diagnostic system capable of simultaneously detecting and identifying up to 100 militarily relevant pathogens/targets, including viruses, bacteria, protozoan parasites, and rickettsia, in a single process from human blood or serum samples, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop an innovative label-free and reagent-free Dielectrophoretic Raman Scattering Biosensor (DIRASBI) system. This concept is based on the integration of dielectrophoresis and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to separate, detect, and identify the SERS fingerprint of each pathogen. The reliable, single-path, DIRASBI system will return results in ~20 minutes. Clinicians can use these results to diagnose infectious agents causing human disease. In Phase I POC will demonstrate the feasibility of DIRASBI by fabricating the prototype and demonstrating its capability to detect 11 pathogens selected and provided by Walter Reed Army Institute of Research with sensitivity and specificity of >95%. In Phase II POC will optimize the DIRASBI design and performance, and demonstrate its capability to simultaneously detect and identify up to 100 pathogens/targets in a whole blood sample in a single tube. Sensitivity and specificity of the assay are expected to be >98% for a panel of 500 blind samples containing known pathogens.