Description

Today, biosensors are one of the most important analytical tools in biotechnology. These sensors take advantage of the selective interaction and binding of certain biological receptors to identify and detect different analytes such as toxins, hormones, DNA strands, proteins, bacteria, etc., in a variety of applications such as molecular diagnostics, pathogen detection, and environmental monitoring

Currently there are many commercially available biosensor systems; however, their current performance in terms of minimum detection level (MDL), detection dynamic range (DR), compactness, manufacturability, cost, and robustness is far from the ideal. There is an ever-increasing demand, both in the United States and internationally, for high-performance, integrated biosensor systems which are robust, easy to manufacture, integrated, and cost-efficient

The manufacturing of conventional integrated biosensor systems uses custom (and generally costly) fabrication processes (e.g., MEMS processes). This invention shows the methods by which one can use cost-efficient CMOS fabrication processes to implement high-performance and high-throughput biosensors.

This technology is essentially an open platform for biosensor systems that use standard silicon-based VLSI fabrication processes. We have been able to demonstrate that CMOS processes, which are the most widely used fabrication processes in integrated circuits, can be utilized to design highly sensitive biosensor system for almost all applications. This is extremely important, since using CMOS can mitigate not only the manufacturability problems, but also the cost issues of biosensor design--without sacrificing the detection performance.

CMOS biosensor arrays are extremely cost-efficient and robust and can have a high level of detection sensitivity while keeping the highest level of integration. This makes these systems extremely appealing for applications where a combination of performance, cost, and compactness is required.

Benefits:

• Manufacturability
• Low cost
• Robustness
• Integration
  

Market Potential/Applications:

Point of care (PoC) molecular diagnostics and in-field environmental monitoring

Contact:

University of Texas,
Austin, USA
Website : www.otc.utexas.edu