NOMBIS · Nano-OptoMechanical Systems for Biological Sensors
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-11-01 → 2019-01-14
- EU contribution
- €158,122
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Nano-OptoMechanical Systems for Biological Sensors
Early identification of the pathogens causing an infection is critical to provide the most effective drugs to the patient, as well as to avoid costly and inefficient treatments that can potentially lead to the development of further resistances. Clinical diagnosis demands the development of novel technologies that significantly improve the effectiveness and robustness, while reducing the analysis time. The emergence of antibiotic resistance is one of the major challenges in microbiology and medicine today. Only in the European Union, antibiotic resistance results in 25.000 deaths per year and €1.5 billion in additional healthcare costs and productivity loss. NOMBIS has allowed the development of a novel technique, the mechanical spectroscopy based on optomechanical resonator sensors, which allows to mechanically characterized and identify individual and alive bacteria with extraordinary precision. The technique developed during NOMBIS project will reduce the hospitalization cost and time. Importantly, it will allow to advance on the development of more efficient medical treatments, entering in a market that will approach 100 billion USD by 2025. Moreover, NOMBIS will reduce the difference in between low-income and high income countries as low income countries suffer significantly more from infectious diseases.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The emergence of antibiotic resistance is one of the major challenges in microbiology and medicine today. Early identification of the pathogens causing an infection and the rapid identification of antibiotic resistance is critical to provide the most effective drugs to the patient and to avoid costly and inefficient treatments that can potentially lead to the development of further resistances. This project proposes application of nano-optomechanical disk resonators to face this challenge. We expect to achieve ultra-sensitive and ultrafast gene-based pathogen detection with subzeptogram (10-21g) mass resolution, beating current techniques. The development of arrays of 100s of microdrum devices per chip will weigh complementary DNA strands to those immobilized on the microdrum surface, so tens of different pathogens in a sample can be identified, along with antibiotic resistances, which are also marked by mutations. The devices will be challenged with a proof-of-principle application to identify sepsis-causing pathogens from blood samples and their resistance to the most commonly used antibiotics. The proposed devices provide a large binding area to reduce the analysis time while preserving extreme sensitivity, down to a few biomolecules (DNA strands). We will be able to screen for tens of different pathogens per chip, with sensitivity good enough to target early infection stages from a standard blood extraction. This multidisciplinary and intersectorial project promotes the collaboration of well-recognized academic research groups expert in the optomechanics field and in the development of novel biosensing tools, a clinical laboratory and an industrial partner, pursuing to generate greater economic and social impact; as well as a highly effective training program for the benefit of the researcher.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · MadridCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union