I-Corps: Point-Of-Care Micro Biochip For Cancer Diagnostics

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project are primarily focused on the societal need for early diagnosis of cancer and the market for commercial applications of disease detection and diagnosis. Cancer remains the second most common cause of death in the US, accounting for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths. The early detection of cancers can enhance preventive measures, increase curability of the disease, reduces health care costs and finally improves the quality of life for patients. The cancer diagnosis process can be a simple self-evaluation process using the point-of-care (POC) micro biochip technology. Therefore, anyone who needs to diagnose the existence and severity of cancer, can perform simple self-check by a POC biochip device. The biochip also has a huge potential in numerous applications in disease diagnosis, drug delivery, 'organ on a chip' and 'lab on a chip' biomedical devices with advantages over the most of the complicated diagnosis processes and sophisticated expensive equipment due to its simple, quick and inexpensive methodology.This I-Corps project is primarily intended to commercialize the point-of-care (POC) micro biochip technology which can diagnose cancer. To achieve the early detection of specific cancer type, the biochip is incorporated with a highly sensitive and specific set of cancer biomarkers and the sensing technology. To increase the sensing capability, the biochip is fabricated with microchannels that are designed to create blood flow without the any external source. The biological reaction is captured using the biochip sensing technology that is developed using highly sensitive nano-circuit design in the biochip. Also, the cancer severity is sensed depending on the intensity of the signal output. Therefore, the cancer and its severity can be diagnosed using the micro biochip.