CHEMOTHERAPY DRUG ANALYZER

The overall objective of the proposed program is to develop a bed-side analyzer capable of providing rapid identification and quantification of chemotherapy drugs and metabolites in serum and urine. The analyzer would allow optimizing effectiveness and minimizing adverse side-effects associated with chemotherapy drugs administered during cancer treatment. The analyzer will use capillary electrophoresis to separate drugs from body fluids with minimal sample preparation, Raman spectroscopy to identify the drugs, and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to increase sensitivity and allow quantification at physiologic concentrations. The Phase I program will demonstrate feasibility through three tasks with the following objectives: 1) develop the SER active sol-gel chemistry for selective adsorption of polar or nonpolar and positive or negative chemical groups; 2) test and refine chemical selectivity and SER activity of the sol-gels using p-aminobenzoic acid, phenyl acetylene, benzoic acid, aniline, camptothecin, carboplatin, cyclophosphamide, 5-fluorouracil, and 8-oxyguanine; and 3) test ability to selectively measure these chemicals and drugs with detection limits of <50 ng/ml and 5 ng/ml in simulated serum and urine samples, respectively. In Phase II a prototype bed-side analyzer will be engineered and head-to-head comparisons to existing technology will be performed