Evaluation of a Device Designed for Microwave Accelerated Protein Chip Assays

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary: The explosive growth of proteomics has increased the demand for rapid and convenient means of studying biomolecular binding interactions. Our goal in this project is to build and test a novel device for a new immunoassay technology called Microwave-Accelerated Surface Chemistry (MASC). MASC consists of two components; preparative, which involves accelerating antibody binding events, and analytical, which involves microwave-triggered reporter chemiluminescence. The device will be, in essence, a microwave incubator/luminometer for performing chip-based immunoassays. MASC chips are unique in containing microwave-active dielectric materials. When irradiated by low power microwaves, the chips undergo controlled temperature increases, inducing preparative and analytical surface reactions. The device will consist of a microwave source (magnetron), a novel waveguide-based reaction cell, a photomultiplier tube to capture light emitted from chips, and a personal computer to initiate reactions and collect and analyze data. By performing chip reactions within a waveguide, we will obtain much more uniform and controllable heating than the current use of a microwave oven cavity. This innovation will confer leapfrog advances in data quality and throughput. If successful, this waveguide-based incubator/luminometer will directly lead to commercial MASC systems. Our first aim in the research is to build a high quality device according to a pre-existing design. Our second and third aims are to achieve specific performance improvements over conventional control methods in rapid antibody binding and microwave chemiluminescence, respectively. We will use a cytokine panel for prototype chip immunoassays. We plan to commercialize MASC devices and chips for immunoassay-based research. The products will accelerate drug discovery and development and reduce associated costs. Relevance to Public Health: Our goal is to dramatically shrink the time required to perform bioanalytical tests called immunoassays using a new technology called Microwave-Accelerated Surface Chemistry (MASC). By reducing immunoassay times from hours to minutes, MASC will accelerate the discovery and development of drugs from proteomics research. The remarkable speed of MASC also holds promise for future rapid immunoassay-based clinical diagnostics and field testing.