A detailed investigation into the optimum avenues to assemble lab-on-the-chip sensing coupled with imaging technology was devised and delivered. An invention record protocol is being opened regarding the NIR fluorophore constructs and their lab-scale isolation as well as peptide labelling. New assays in living cancer cells and healthy cells confirmed the effectiveness of nano-immobilized biosensors incorporating a new functionalised bombesin peptide which was optimized and rendered ready for sensing and imaging of PCa-specific biomarkers featuring in PC3 and LNCaP cells populations. A detailed characterisation of the subcomponents necessary for an optimal biosensor device was delivered through investigations carried out by optical imaging and solution spectroscopies (NMR, MS) and validated by cells culturing experiments, whereby new life sciences protocols were established, including those relevant for organ-on-the-chip technologies, using 2D as well as 3D living cells constructs. The translation from these peptides-decorated lab-on-the-chip biosensors to commercial technologies is ongoing with the Electrical Engineering and Pharmacology Department and named project partners. Through our Cancer Research at Bath network, new contacts were made with clinical colleagues at the Royal United Hospital as well as with biophysical specialists at the STFC and the robustness and reproducibility of an optimised biosensors construct has been demonstrated. We are now in a position to build on current commercial project partners interaction and have also formalized new collaborations with National Physics Laboratory and STFC CDN+ and Research Complex at Harwell. Importantly, an extensive outreach campaign in the Bath community, with a purpose-designed set of questionnaires in population were carried out in March 2022, with the involvement of our undergraduate students which shed light for the first time on important aspects of patients and population likely acceptability of this new technology.
This project development confirmed that the application areas for the biomolecular conjugates and their nano-dimensional hybrids are far-reaching and broad, going beyond the biosensing prototypes to be explored hereby, especially in the context of the COVID-pandemic and the acceleration of the research and development needs for sensing technologies. This work will be further developed towards personalized medicine for non-communicable diseases (e.g. cancers, that have in common one particularly well-defined and biologically understood cell surface receptor complexes, for example, endothelial growth factor EGF, additionally to GRP), and showcasing relevant protocols for sensing and imaging approaches towards tackling communicable diseases too with the combined use of nanomedicines and molecular imaging for early detection and therapy monitoring.
