NVE CORP. (FORMERLY NONVOLATILE ELECTRONICS, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase II: 8.5

Description

This Phase II Small Business Innovation Research proposal responds to food safety market needs by developing a high-throughput pathogen detector that will reduce the potential for disease outbreaks and costly food recalls. The device developed in this program addresses a broad sector of food producing markets. This project will focus on detecting live Salmonella organisms in industry-relevant large sample volumes faster, and with significantly higher sensitivity than state-of-the-art methods. The detection method uses DNA and RNA aptamers as biochemical "hooks" between Salmonella and magnetic nanoparticles. The magnetic nanoparticles are then detected by a novel tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) lab-on-a-chip sensor. The key innovation is a unique microfluidics architecture that localizes Salmonella and bound magnetic nanoparticles to the location on the TMR sensor with the highest sensitivity while dramatically increasing throughput. NVE Corporation has assembled a team of experts from academia and industry for microfluidics design and fabrication, aptamer and magnetic nanoparticle creation, and magnetic TMR sensor production, yielding a highly specific and integrated detection solution. A feasibility prototype was successfully tested in the Phase I program. The goal of the Phase II is the construction of a high-throughput bench-top system with faster, higher-sensitivity detection of Salmonella than otherwise possible.This file MUST be converted to PDF prior to attachment in the electronic application package