Biomarker Devices

Rapid measurement of biomarkers in patient samples is a major target for OCEDP research.

In collaboration with Dr. Jian-Ping Wang (Department of Electric Engineering at the University of Minnesota), Dr. Todd Klein, and other members of Dr. Wang’s research team, we developed benchtop and handheld Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) biosensing systems that have the potential to serve as platforms for detecting a wide variety of protein biomarkers for human diseases, including ovarian cancer.  System development included spintronic and nanomagnetic materials, biomolecular chemistry, electronic circuitry, analog and digital signal processing, firmware programming, user interface programming on both PC and Android smartphone, communications over both USB and Bluetooth, and mechanical integration.  We demonstrated that the benchtop GMR biosensing system can be developed into an assay to detect ovarian cancer biomarkers. The prototype system delivered the required performance in terms of high-sensitivity multiplex assays in a portable format with enough flexibility to serve as a platform for ovarian cancer. We achieved multiplex detection of three well-known biomarkers for ovarian cancer:  cancer antigen 125 (CA125 II), human epididymis protein 4 (HE4), and interleukin 6 (IL6).

Dr. Amy Skubitz and Dr. Jian-Ping Wang were joint senior authors of the manuscript entitled, “Development of a multiplexed giant magnetoresistive biosensor array prototype to quantify ovarian cancer biomarkers” which was accepted for publication in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.  The research in this manuscript is a culmination of a Pilot Project funded by the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program which provided salary support for Dr. Wang’s graduate student, Todd Klein, and OCEDP’s Dr. Kristin Boylan. 

Development of a multiplexed giant magnetoresistive biosensor array prototype to quantify ovarian cancer biomarkers.

Klein T, Wang W, Yu L, Boylan KLM, Vogel RI, Skubitz APN, Wang JP.

Abstract:

In this work, we developed benchtop and handheld Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) biosensing systems that serve as platforms for detecting a wide variety of protein biomarkers for human disease. System development included spintronic and nanomagnetic materials, biomolecular chemistry, electronic circuitry, analog and digital signal processing, firmware programming, user interface programming on both PC and Android smartphone, communications over both USB and Bluetooth, and mechanical integration. In this work, we demonstrated the benchtop GMR biosensing system in the context of ovarian cancer assay development. The prototype system delivered the required performance in terms of high-sensitivity multiplex assays in a portable format with enough flexibiilty to serve as a platform for ovarian cancer and many other diseases. We achieved multuplex detection of cancer antigen 125, human epidiymis protein 4, and interleukin 6, with limits of detection as low as 3.7U/mL, 7.4pg/mL, and 7.4pg/mL, respectively.

The publication is available online here.