Ultra-micro oxygen sensor development

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall aim of this STTR proposal is to take an innovative, successful; laboratory based technology and transfer it to the commercial sector. Specifically, we wish to establish the capabilities within the Company to manufacture reliable, robust and inexpensive ultra-micro oxygen sensors suitable for electrochemical applications related to cellular metabolism. These sensors will be specifically designed to operate under the exacting conditions of a non-invasive modulation technique for signal detection. This electrochemical technique allows the monitoring of chemical conditions in the extended boundary layer surrounding single cells and tissues. Currently there is no commercial provider of suitable oxygen sensors meeting the exacting design requirements of this application. We propose the following Specific Aims for Phase I. Specific Aim 1: To optimize the fabrication of the oxygen sensor design developed in the laboratory of the Principal Investigator for large-scale production. Specific Aim 2: Design and execute a series of tests to evaluate the performance criteria of the manufactured sensors, and validate the efficiency of oxygen sensors using techniques compatible with scaling up the test procedure. Aims 1 & 2 incorporate a significant effort towards developing semi-automated production. The commercial availability of the sensor will facilitate dissemination to research, clinical and pharmaceutical companies. We anticipate a broad market demand including research areas on metabolism - as applicable to diabetes, cancer, age related human infertility and other diseases of the mitochondrion. Further, other oxygen dependent cell events can be monitored, as in the oxidative burst of the macrophage immune response. Given the importance of metabolism to the pathology of diseases the availability of the new oxygen sensor will facilitate numerous biomedical investigations and provide a novel methodology for targeting drug development at the level of single cell assays.