Medical Design Briefs - February 2025 - 27

chip. Current methods for customizing
these sensors, such as drop-casting bioreceptors
like antibodies onto the FET's surface,
lack the precision and scalability required
for more complex diagnostic tasks.
To address this, these researchers are exploring
new ways to modify FET surfaces,
allowing each transistor on a chip to be
tailored to detect a different biomarker.
This would enable parallel detection of
multiple pathogens.
Enter thermal scanning probe lithography
(tSPL), a breakthrough technology
that may hold the key to overcoming these
barriers. This technique allows for the precise
chemical patterning of a polymercoated
chip, enabling the functionalization
of individual FETs with different
bioreceptors, such as antibodies or aptamers,
at resolutions as fine as 20 nanometers.
This is on par with the tiny size of transistors
in today's advanced semiconductor
chips. By allowing for highly selective modification
of each transistor, this method
opens the door to the development of
FET-based sensors that can detect a wide
variety of pathogens on a single chip, with
unparalleled sensitivity.
Riedo, who was instrumental in the development
and proliferation of tSPL technology,
sees its use here to be further evidence
of the groundbreaking way this
nanofabrication technique can be used in
practical applications. " tSPL, now a commercially
available lithographic technology,
has been key to functionalize each FET
with different bioreceptors in order to
achieve multiplexing, " she says.
In tests, FET sensors functionalized using
tSPL have shown remarkable performance,
detecting as few as 3 attomolar
(aM) concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 spike
proteins and as little as 10 live virus particles
per milliliter, while effectively distinguishing
between different types of viruses,
including influenza A. The ability to
reliably detect such minute quantities of
pathogens with high specificity is a critical
step toward creating portable diagnostic
devices that could one day be used in a variety
of settings, from hospitals to homes.
The study, published by the Royal Society
of Chemistry in Nanoscale, was supported
by Mirimus, a Brooklyn-based biotechnology
company, and LendLease, a
multinational construction and real estate
company based in Australia. They are
working with the NYU Tandon team to develop
illness-detecting wearables and
home devices, respectively.
" This research shows off the power of
the collaboration between industry and academia,
and how it can change the face of
modern medicine, " says Prem Premsrirut,
president and CEO of Mirimus. " NYU
Tandon's researchers are producing work
that will play a large role in the future of
disease detection. "
" Companies such as Lendlease and other
developers involved in urban regeneration
are searching for innovative solutions
like this to sense biological threats in buildings, "
says Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli
of UC Berkeley, a collaborator on the project.
" Biodefense measures like this will be
a new infrastructural layer for the buildings
of the future "
As semiconductor manufacturing
continues to advance, integrating billions
of nanoscale FETs onto microchips,
the potential for using these
chips in biosensing applications is becoming
increasingly feasible. A universal,
scalable method for functionalizing
FET surfaces at nanoscale precision
would enable the creation of sophisticated
diagnostic tools, capable of detecting
multiple diseases in real time,
with the kind of speed and accuracy
that could transform modern medicine.
For more information, contact Dr.
Davood Shahrjerdi at davood@nyu.edu
or visit https://engineering.nyu.edu.
Scalable 3D Printing Technique Produces Stretchable,
Flexible Soft Plastics
The materials are
also recyclable and
inexpensive.
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
A team led by Emily Davidson has reported
that they used a class of widely
available polymers called thermoplastic
elastomers to create soft 3D printed structures
with tunable stiffness. Engineers can
design the print path used by the 3D
printer to program the plastic's physical
properties so that a device can stretch and
flex repeatedly in one direction while remaining
rigid in another. Davidson, an
assistant professor of chemical and biological
engineering, says this approach to engineering
soft architected materials could
have many uses, such as soft robots, medical
devices and prosthetics, strong lightMedical
Design Briefs, February 2025
Unlike similar materials that require complex processing, the thermoplastic elastomers can be created with a 3D
printer. (Credit: Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy)
weight helmets, and custom high-performance
shoe soles.
The key to the material's performance is
its internal structure at the tiniest level. The
research team used a type of block copolywww.medicaldesignbriefs.com
mer
which forms stiff cylindrical structures
that are 5-7 nanometers thick (for comparison,
human hair measures about 90,000
nanometers) inside a stretchy polymer matrix.
The researchers used 3D printing to
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Medical Design Briefs - February 2025

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