Introduction

An important goal of targeted drug delivery is to minimize the exposure of normal tissues to the drugs while maintaining their therapeutic concentration in diseased parts of the body. However, current methodologies are not yet ideal for such goal; therefore, new strategies for targeted drug delivery are needed. A photovoltaic device (PD) is a system that converts lights into electricity as well as induces charge transfer by photovoltaic effect. Motivated by such unique property, we have hypothesized that a PD can serve as a new drug delivery system to carry chemotherapeutic drugs and release them upon external photo stimulation, such as near Near-Infrared (NIR) light or Laser source. Taking advantage of repulsion between a photovoltaic device and a substance is proposed to serve as a new drug delivery method. In this study, we have investigated if the if the charged molecules can be effectively released from the PV device upon photon stimulation.

Methodology

As proof of principle, we have first experimented coating of commercially available photovoltaic devices with positively charged poly-l-lysine and negatively charged bovine serum albumin (BSA) tested the release of the molecules upon photo stimulation. These molecules were physically absorbed onto the surface of the PDs before exposed to an IR LED illuminator, which was used as an external light source. Moreover, the pure glass slide was used as a control of the device with non-photovoltaic effect for drug delivery.

Results and Discussion

During the series of experiments, we have found that, the PD has a capability to release the charged drugs by photovoltaic effect. Compared to no light stimulation, the positively charged poly-l-lysine and the negatively charged BSA when exposed to IR illuminator for 3 hours were released about 2.0 folds and 2.1 folds respectively. Moreover, in the control group (pure glass slide with no photovoltaic effect), there was no significant release of both poly-l-lysine and BSA when exposed to the IR illustrator.

Conclusion

These data showed that the new PD can effectively carry either positively or negative charged molecules on its surface and release them upon external photo stimulation, which suggests the PD has potential to be used as a new drug delivery system to carry cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. Further experiments are planned on the micro-fabricated photovoltaic devices (Size 300µm to 500 µm). With this project a new approach for targeted drug delivery with micro- photovoltaic devices will be developed.

(*Proprietary: an IP application based on this study is pending)

There is currently a strong need to develop sensitive and reliable biosensors, based on electronic detection, such as field-effect transistors (FET). Most of the focus has been on improving sensitivity by decreasing the FET channel size, using nanowires instead of similar devices on planar silicon. Issues of silicon functionalization, important for device reliability have been mostly ignored.

We present a novel approach to tackle the most common drawback of using Surface Plasmon Resonance for analyte screening in complex biological matrices - the nonspecific binding to the sensor chip surface.

By using a perforated membrane supported by a polymeric gel structure that exceeds the evanescent wave penetration depth, we created a filter above the sensing region that prevents the diffusion of large particles or aggregates that bind non specifically to the polymeric gel and interfere with SPR sensing, thus increasing assay’s sensitivity, reducing sample preparation steps and shortening the analysis time in total. A 10 nm thick non-fouling membrane with nanopatterned macropores was fabricated by means of colloidal lithography and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of polyethylene oxide-like films. Such a membrane was supported by carboxymethyldextran, a polymeric gel matrix commonly used in surface plasmon resonance analysis. The surface was characterized using surface plasmon resonance imaging, contact angle, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.

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We are currently investigating the chemical functionalization of diamond thin films with antibodies for selective recognition and detection of biological cells, using E. coli as a model system. Infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements have been performed to characterize the covalent attachment of antibodies to the surface and to quantitatively characterize the antibody surface attachment via the N(1s) and S(2p) levels. To determine the factors controlling selectivity and stability, we have performed time-dependent cell capture studies and have correlated the time-dependent changes in cell capture efficiency with corresponding measurements of the surface composition. These measurements are used to establish whether long-term stability and selectivity for biomolecular recognition is limited by loss of the ligands directly linked to the diamond substrate, by removal of the biological layer, or by alteration of the antibody structure. Infrared measurements of the Amide I band is particularly useful in characterizing changes in the antibody secondary structures. These studies provide important fundamental insights into the chemical factors that control biological interactions at surfaces and provide guidance on efforts to make ultra-stable biological sensing platforms.

It has been observed that ion currents pass through biased nanopores in electrolyte solutions with bulk conduction properties until the concentration of ions decreases beyond a certain level. At this critical point, the conductance of the pores saturates at a constant value despite further decreasing the concentration of ions, an effect that has been attributed to charge shielding effects of surface charges within the pore. Below the critical concentration, the Debye length associated with screening the surface charges becomes larger and larger compared to the size of the pore and effectively cuts off bulk conduction. However, the conductance of the pore is not affected by the continuing growth of the space-charge region with the Debye length. In the following we present a model describing the nanopore-electrolyte system with an analytical solution that explains the experimentally observed behavior for five different salt solutions at low concentrations, including KCl, KCl in 50% glycerol, Tris-EDTA buffer, phosphate buffered saline, and CaCl₂. Conduction through the nanopore at low ion concentrations is analogous to hole extraction in reverse biased diodes and is related only to the diffusion of the minority carrier into the space charge region where it is then accelerated through the nanopore. These results also have important implications for solid-state nanopores being applied for DNA detection and sequencing technologies.

In our studies, we utilized an inkjet based in situ oligonucleotide synthesis platform that uses salvaged printheads from commercial printers. The platform utilizes standard four-step phosphoramidite chemistry with some modifications in order to synthesize oligonucleotides on functionalized substrates. A sensitive pressurization system is used to ensure print quality and an on-board vision system enables substrate registration and synthesis monitoring. Using this platform we synthesized oligonucleotide on prepatterned functionalized plastic slides. Such patterned substrates help in proper droplet formation and fluid mixing on the surface while mitigating satellite and irregular drops, which can lead to cumulative synthesis errors. Functional integrity of synthesized oligonucleotides was confirmed by hybridization with complementary strands. Being able to hot emboss microfluidic structures directly onto plastic slides in combination with the ability to generate arbitrary sequences provides diagnostic capabilities as well as the means to harvest pools of cheap oligonucleotides on demand. Importantly, our combination of technologies has allowed formation of genes and large DNA constructs by amplifying oligonucleotides off of the synthesized arrays and assembling them in the on-chip chambers.