From the moment he received his first chemistry set, Bernie Kraatz was hooked. “I was totally turned on by space, science and science fiction,” he says.
It’s not a surprise, then, that many of the technologies he now creates would not seem out of place in a sci-fi movie.
A chemistry professor, Kraatz is developing highly sensitive biosensors that can be prepared to detect disease and genetic defects, test potential treatments, improve food safety and save the economy billions of dollars – all on the face of centimetre-square microchips.
Each contains several gold sensors only 10 micrometres – 10-millionths of a metre – in diameter that can chemically bind to DNA or protein molecules. These biochemical tools can then be used to screen for specific molecules, including those associated with HIV, or to determine how new drug molecules interact with disease processes like cancer.
“You have to develop a thorough understanding of the chemical compound – in my case Ferrocene – its electrochemistry and how to attach it to specific molecules to develop biosensors,” Kraatz says.
His team has developed a detection device for monitoring various HIV proteins associated with different stages of the virus. As successful drugs interfere with a virus’s ability to bind to the tiny sensors, they can also be used to screen new therapies, providing opportunities for both early diagnosis and treatment. A similar strategy can be used for protein sensors that target PSA, which is a marker for prostate cancer.
“We can quantify the binding and we can monitor the drug molecules that interfere with this binding, so it’s a rapid throughput screening tool for new drugs – it’s like a biochemistry lab on a chip,” he says.
Implications for this technology are not limited to healthcare, however.
Kraatz believes biosensors can save shipping companies millions of dollars annually by providing border guards with species-specific genetic information about potentially dangerous or protected species like insects found stowed away in shipments of such perishable items as produce, meat or flowers. This information would empower officials to identify threats more quickly, eliminating the need to retain shipments and have them to rot as samples are sent to offsite laboratories.
“What people at the border need is a portable device,” he says. “Millions of dollars are lost annually, and not wanting to hold the shipment up means millions of dollars of potentially dangerous goods are let across the border every year.”
Kraatz is also exploring applications for air quality and food safety, including sensors for contaminations like Listeria and E.coli. In addition, he is modifying the chips to fit directly into a computer’s PCI slot, which will eliminate the need to engineer new interfaces for reading the data and will make biosensors increasingly portable and cost-effective.
As director of the university’s Nanofabrication facility, Kraatz sees great promise for materials and biomaterials research at Western. “The nanofabrication facility is a user-driven facility,” he says. “Real research strength comes from the combination of nano- and micro-fabrication tools with characterization tools available at our facility, and at Surface Science Western, that makes this facility a real gem and a leading place for materials science.”
By working together, they are making a reality of what could only previously have been imagined in science fiction.
For more information visit the website at www.uwo.ca/fab/.
