Funding tool: Basic research projects
Project-ID: LS13-023
Project start: 01. Jänner 2015
Project end: will follow
Runtime: 24 months / finished
Funding amount: € 246.000,00

Brief summary:

For several critical diseases (e.g. sepsis, acute or chronic liver failure, chronic kidney disease), advanced extracorporeal blood purification technologies such as haemodiafiltration/plasmaseparation can be used for treatment. During this treatment several prognostic biomarkers related to protein-energy wasting and inflammation, enrichment of toxic substances, and myocardial injury/dysfunction have to be monitored. A multi-parameter molecular biosensor system suitable for point-of-care testing would be highly desirable to facilitate a personalized treatment based on the patient’s individual needs.
The objective of this project is to develop a multi-channel microwave based biosensor, which holds the strong promise to enable sensitive point-of-care detection of protein biomarkers. We focus our work on inflammation protein biomarkers, which are directly associated with the survival of haemodialysis patients. The microwave sensor devices to be developed consist of microwave strip lines made of gold with integrated split-ring resonators serving as sensing elements. The surfaces of the microwave resonators will be covered with receptors that specifically bind the target proteins. For the local biofunctionalization of the multi-channel microwave sensor arrays, inkjet printing will be investigated as an attractive technique for large area surface modification.

Keywords:
microwave based sensors, biosensor, surface modification