Within the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, ELISA exams present vital high quality management throughout drug growth and manufacturing. The exams can exactly quantify protein ranges, however additionally they require hours of labor by educated technicians and specialised gear. That makes them prohibitively costly, driving up the prices of medicine and placing analysis testing out of attain for a lot of.
Now the Superior Silicon Group (ASG), based by Marcie Black ’94, MEng ’95, PhD ’03 and Invoice Rever, is commercializing a brand new know-how that might dramatically decrease the time and prices related to protein sensing. ASG’s proprietary sensor combines silicon nanowires with antibodies that may bind to totally different proteins to create a extremely delicate measurement of their focus in a given answer.
The exams can measure the focus of many alternative proteins and different molecules without delay, with outcomes sometimes accessible in lower than quarter-hour. Customers merely place a tiny quantity of answer on the sensor, rinse the sensor, after which insert it into ASG’s handheld testing system.
“We’re making it 15 instances sooner and 15 instances decrease value to check for proteins,” Black says. “That’s on the drug growth aspect. This might additionally make the manufacturing of medicine considerably sooner and cheaper. It might revolutionize how we create medication on this nation and around the globe.”
Since growing its sensor, ASG’s staff has acquired inquiries from a protracted listing of individuals thinking about utilizing them to develop new therapeutics, assist elite athletes practice, and perceive soil concentrations in agriculture, amongst different functions.
For now, although, the small firm is specializing in reducing boundaries in well being care by promoting its low-cost sensors to corporations growing and manufacturing medication.
“Proper now, cash is a limiting think about researching and creating new medication,” explains Marissa Gillis, a member of ASG’s staff. “Making these processes sooner and less expensive might dramatically enhance the quantity of biologic testing and creation. It additionally makes it extra viable for corporations to develop medication for uncommon situations with smaller markets.”
A household away from dwelling
Black grew up in a small city in Ohio earlier than coming to MIT for 3 levels in electrical engineering.
“Going to MIT modified my life,” Black says. “It opened my eyes to the chances of doing science and engineering to make the world a greater place. Additionally, simply being round so many wonderful folks taught me how you can dream large.”
For her PhD, Black labored with the late Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus, a extremely acclaimed physicist and nanotechnology pioneer who Black remembers for her mentorship and compassion as a lot as her contributions to our understanding of unique supplies. Black couldn’t at all times afford to go dwelling for holidays, so she’d spend Thanksgivings with the Dresselhaus household.
“Millie was an incredible particular person, and her household was a household away from dwelling for me,” Black says. “Millie continued to be my mentor — and I hear she did this with lots of college students — till the day she died.”
For her thesis, Black studied the optical properties of nanowires, which taught her concerning the nanostructures and optoelectronics she’d ultimately use as a part of the Superior Silicon Group.
Following commencement, Black labored on the Los Alamos Nationwide Laboratory earlier than founding the corporate Bandgap Engineering, which developed environment friendly, low-cost nanostructured photo voltaic cells. That know-how was subsequently commercialized by different corporations and have become the topic of a patent dispute. In 2015, Black spun out the Superior Silicon Group to use the same know-how to protein sensing.
ASG’s sensors mix identified approaches for sensitizing silicon to organic molecules, utilizing the photoelectric properties of silicon nanowires to detect proteins electrically.
“It’s principally a photo voltaic cell that we functionalize with an antibody that’s particular to a sure protein,” Black says. “When the protein will get shut, it brings {an electrical} cost with it that can repel mild carriers contained in the silicon, and doing that modifications how nicely the electron and the holes can recombine. By trying on the photocurrent if you’re uncovered to an answer, you possibly can inform how a lot protein is sure to the floor and thus the focus of that protein.”
ASG was accepted into MIT.nano’s START.nano startup accelerator and MIT’s Workplace of Company Relations Startup Trade Program quickly after its founding, which gave Black’s staff entry to cutting-edge gear at MIT and related her with potential traders and companions.
Black has additionally acquired broad assist from MIT’s Enterprise Mentoring Service and labored with researchers from MIT’s Microsystems Expertise Laboratories (MTL), the place she carried out analysis as a pupil.
“Though the corporate is in Lowell, [Massachusetts], I’m always going to MIT and getting assist from professors and researchers at MIT,” Black says.
Biosensing for influence
From in depth discussions with folks within the pharmaceutical trade, Black discovered concerning the want for a extra inexpensive protein-measurement instrument. Throughout drug growth and manufacturing, protein ranges should be measured to detect issues reminiscent of contamination from host cell proteins, which could be deadly to sufferers even at very low portions.
“It could value greater than $1 billion to develop a drug,” Black says. “A giant a part of the method is bioprocessing, and 50 to 80 p.c of bioprocessing is devoted to purifying these undesirable proteins. That problem results in medication being costlier and taking longer to get to market.”
ASG has since labored with researchers to develop exams for biomarkers related to lung most cancers and dormant tuberculosis and has acquired a number of grants from the Nationwide Science Basis, the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Expertise, and the commonwealth of Massachusetts, together with funding to develop exams for host cell proteins.
This yr, ASG introduced a partnership with Axogen to assist the regenerative nerve restore firm develop nerve tissue.
“There’s lots of curiosity in utilizing our sensor for functions in regenerative medication,” Black says. “One other instance we envision is for those who’re sick in rural India and there’s no physician close by, you possibly can present up at a clinic, nurses may give this to you and take a look at for the flu, Covid-19, meals poisoning, being pregnant, and 10 different issues all of sudden. The outcomes are available quarter-hour, then you would get what you want or teleconference a health care provider.”
ASG is at present in a position to produce about 2,000 of its sensors on 8-inch chips per manufacturing line in its associate’s semiconductor foundry. As the corporate continues scaling up manufacturing, Black is hopeful the sensors will decrease prices at each step between drug builders and sufferers.
“We actually need to decrease the boundaries for testing so that everybody has entry to good well being care,” Black says. “Past that, there are such a lot of functions for protein sensing. It’s actually the place the rubber hits the street in biology, agriculture, diagnostics. We’re excited to associate with leaders in each one among these industries.”
