Combating infectious diseases pandemic at the point-of-care with a next generation ultrasensitive and rapid DNA nanosensors

Contagious infectious diseases (CIDs) collectively kill millions of people every year worldwide. With the most recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we got reminded yet again that correct diagnosis of CIDs is of outmost importance to swiftly track and isolate those patients at risk of spreading the viruses in the community. Sadly, even in the current pandemic, the golden standard remains to be polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which offers the desired sensitivity but at the expense of a 24 hours turnaround time (at best), due to dispatching of clinical samples to the centralized laboratories. To tackle this need, the strategic objective of this project is to develop the next-generation DNA nanosensors that will enable rapid diagnosis of viral-caused CIDs with PCR-like sensitivity. This will be achieved by implementing otherwise complex digital bioassays in a microfluidic chip, ensuring desired sensitivity and simplicity for true point-of-care testing. Uniquely, these nanosensors will also support simultaneous detection of different viruses with unrestricted multiplexing capacity using only one type of fluorophore. To achieve this ambitious goal, we will exploit in an innovative way DNA enzymes (DNAzymes), DNA origami and surface nanopatterning, thereby combining the strengths of functional and structural DNA nanotechnology.

Keywords:Biosensors, Microfluidics, Point-of-care diagnostics, Nanosensor, Digital bioassays, Infectious diseases, DNA origami, Nucleic acid enzymes

Disciplines:Medical nanotechnology, Biosensors, Surface engineering, Microfluidics/flow chemistry, General diagnostics