Project Brief
General Competition (November 1993)Development of Multi-Photon Detection Technique and Its Application to Environmental and Biomedical DiagnosticsExtend recently developed multi-photon detector technology to provide a supersensitive radioisotope detection and measurement system for use in environmental and biomedical diagnostics and in semiconductor materials processing. Sponsor: BioTraces, Inc.7986 Lakecrest DriveGreenbelt, MD 20770
Scientists have pushed the ability to detect minute concentrations of chemicals in gas, liquids, or solids to ever lower limits, but there is a need for higher sensitivity, lower detection limits and faster processing. Fields such as environmental monitoring, and biomedical research require extraordinary levels of sensitivity. Projects such as the Human Genome Program also require very high throughput -- thousands to millions of samples daily. BioTraces has an improved radioactive tracer detection system originally developed for cosmology, which offers extremely low detection limits. Instruments of this class use radioactive isotopes which are chemically bound to the target molecules or atoms. Photon or electron detectors that register radiation decay particles are used to spot the "tagged" targets. Sensitivity is limited by background radiation -- 10 to 100 counts per minute for typical commercial instruments in typical applications. BioTraces beats this limitation with a sophisticated multi-photon detector (MPD) which only registers "counts" that match the multiple-photon decay pattern of selected emitting isotopes used as tags. In contrast to conventional methods, background levels for BioTraces detectors are a few counts per day. Several different isotopes are used to tag different species in the sample; all can be measured simultaneously, greatly speeding complex analysis tasks such as are found in clinical screening. Since background interference is so low, the minimum amount of isotope needed for an analysis can be as much as 1000 times lower than a conventional radioisotope, making the BioTraces system considerably safer for both patients and the environment. Under the ATP, BioTraces proposes to extend its prototype MPDs to systems with two-dimensional spatial resolution, develop a portable MPD system, conduct background studies, extend the number of useful isotope systems, and will make the technology suitable for use in biomedical diagnostics, environmental diagnostics, and semiconductor material processing. Researchers at Boston University, George Mason University, the University of South Carolina, and two small high-tech companies will work with BioTraces on the project.
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