Assessment of European, Japanese, and U.S. Research and Development in Biosensing

Final Report

The final report from this study is available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
International Research and Development in Biosensing (~4.1MB)

Workshop Information

• The WTEC workshop on International R&D in Biosensing was held at the Bethesda Marriott Hotel (5151 Pooks Hill Rd, Bethesda, MD) on May 13, 2003. Viewgraphs presented at this workshop are available.
• Proceedings from the U.S. R&D Overview Workshop held at NIH in Bethesda, MD on December 3rd and 4th, 2002. This volume is a collection of papers presented at the workshop. Paper authors were asked to provide a broad description of all related U.S. work in their respective fields (i.e., not necessarily just the activities in their own laboratories).

Purpose

The goal of this study is to gather information and disseminate it to government decisionmakers and the research community on worldwide status and trends in biosensing R&D.  The study panelists will gather information on biosensing R&D abroad useful to the U.S. government in its own R&D programs, and to critically analyze and compare the research in the United States with that being pursued in Japan, Europe, or other major industrialized countries.  This information will serve the following purposes:

• Identify good ideas overseas worth exploring in U.S. R&D programs
• Clarify research opportunities and needs for promoting progress in the field generally
• Identify opportunities for international collaboration
• Evaluate the relative position of foreign research programs relative to those in the U.S.

Scope

Biosensing includes systems that incorporate a variety of means, including electrical, electronic, and photonic devices; biological materials (e.g., tissue, enzymes, nucleic acids, etc.); and chemical analysis to produce detectable signals for the monitoring or identification of biological phenomena.  This is distinct from “biosensors” that employ only biological materials or mechanisms for sensing.  In a broader sense, the study of biosensing includes any approach to detection of biological elements and the associated software or computer identification technologies (e.g., imaging) that identify biological characteristics.  Biosensing is finding a growing number of applications in a wide variety of areas, including biomedicine, food production and processing, and detection of bacteria, viruses, and biological toxins for biowarfare defense.  Subtopics likely to be covered in this WTEC study include the following:

• Nucleic acid sensors and DNA chips and arrays
• Organism- and cell-based biosensors
• Bioelectronics and biometrics
• Biointerfaces and biomaterials; biocompatibility and biofouling
• Integrated, multi-modality sensors and sensor networks
• System issues, including signal transduction, data interpretation, and validation
• Novel sensing algorithms, e.g., non-enzyme-based sensors for glucose, mechanical sensors for prosthetics
• Related issues in bio-MEMS and NEMS (microelectromechanical and nanoelectromechanical systems), possibly including actuators
• Applications in biomedicine, the environment, food industry, security and defense

Particular emphasis will be on technologies that may lead to portable or fieldable devices/instruments. Important consideration will be given to an integrated approach to detection, storage, analysis, validation, interpretation and presentation of results from the biosensing system. Focus will be on research from the following disciplines:

• BioMems & nano
• Optical Spectroscopy
• Mass Spectroscopy
• Chemometrics, pattern recognition, telemetry, signal processing
• Toxicology

Finally, beyond the above technical issues, the study may also address the following non-technical issues:

• Mechanisms for enhancing international and interdisciplinary cooperation in the field
• Opportunities for shortening the lead time for deployment of new biosensing technologies emerging from the laboratory
• Long range research, educational, and infrastructure issues that need addressed to promote better progress in the field
• Current government R&D funding levels overseas compared to the United States, to the extent data are available

Panelists

Jerome Schultz (Chair)	Director, Center for Bioengineering Bourns Hall, Room A247 College of Engineering University of California Riverside CA 92521 jssbio@engr.ucr.edu
Milan Mrksich (Vice-chair)	Department of Chemsitry The University of Chicago 5735 South Ellis Avenue Chicago, IL 60637 mmrksich@midway.uchicago.edu http://mrksich-group.uchicago.edu/
Sangeeta N. Bhatia	Department of Bioengineering Mail Stop 0412 University of California at San Diego San Diego, CA 92037 sbhatia@ucsd.edu http://www-bioeng.ucsd.edu/ http://mtel.ucsd.edu/
David J. Brady	Electrical and Computer Engineering Box 90291 Duke University Durham, North Carolina 27708 http://www.disp.duke.edu/ http://www.fitzpatrick.duke.edu/
Antonio J. Ricco, Ph.D.	Consulting Director of Microtechnologies & Biosystems, NASA Ames Research Center Consulting Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University 101 Bacigalupi Dr. Los Gatos, CA 95032 ajricco@attbi.com
David R. Walt	Department of Chemistry Tufts University Medford, MA  02155 david.walt@tufts.edu http://ase.tufts.edu/chemistry/walt/
Charles L. Wilkins	Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry 115 Chemistry Building University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR 72701 cwilkins@comp.uark.edu http://www.uark.edu/depts/cheminfo/uarkchem/