NSF Grant to Support University-Business Partnership
Nano-porous silicon membranes developed at the 人妻少妇专区’s Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences will soon be used to manufacture portable devices that can analyze DNA in remote settings.
A $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will fund a partnership among Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering James McGrath, SiMPore, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Integrated Nanotechnologies (INT) to fabricate the devices.
(Photo by SiMPore Inc.)
A key component will be filters made of the super-thin silicon membranes. The filters being used today are sponge-like and about 1,000 times thicker than the nanomembranes.
“The thicker the membrane, the less efficiently they work as a filter,” said McGrath, who helped invent the super-thin membranes. “Our membranes are one-molecule thick with tiny holes capable of quickly separating particles close in size.”
The super-thin filters are manufactured by, a University-based start-up company founded by McGrath and colleagues. McGrath’s team is working to integrate the filters into INT’s components to create the highly portable, chip-based devices.
At present, pathogen-testing is done by machines that are about the size of an office printer, but the collaborators hope to create microchip-sized versions the device as part of the grant effort. Such a tiny device could be inexpensive and taken into the field for military use and for third world medicine.
McGrath sees the University/industry grant as part of a growing trend. “The National Science Foundation and other federal funding groups want to support public-private partnerships that can energize the economy and create jobs,” he said.
聽is a high-tech firm in the Rochester area that develops systems for detecting and identifying small quantities of biological materials.
