SBIR Phase II: Commercial Scale Production of High Quality and Affordable Fe3O4 Nanocrystals for Nano-Biomedicine

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project intends to finalize commercial production protocols for high quality, highly stable, bio-compatible, bio-accessible, and yet affordable Fe3O4 nanocrystals and related magnetic beads. Current state-of-the-art methodology for making Fe3O4 nanocrystals for biomedical applications has many critical deficiencies including poor ability to control size, broad size distribution, difficult/complicated surface chemistry, high cost and low solubility in solutions. This technology will produce high quality of Fe3O4 nanocrystals. The company's products have excellent control of size and size distribution and offer super stability and friendly surface chemistry so that they are completely dispersible in solutions due to their simple processing and manufacturing technique. Their terminal groups are ready to conjugate various bio-molecules so that they can be used in various biomedical applications. The primary application for this technology will concentrate on the life science research. Specific applications include (1) Magnetic bio-separation, (2) Magnetic resonance imaging (3) Drug delivery, and (4) Biomedical treatment. The biomedical applications related to the Fe3O4 magnetic nanocrystals cover many aspects of biomedical fields, ranging from diagnostics, detection, therapy, separation, and pollution control. The environmentally benign nature of this technology helps to achieve a sustainable environmentally-aware business paradigm.