Roswell reports on scalable molecular electronics sensor IC
A paper outlining the operation of the chip was published in a peer-reviewed article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The chip uses single molecules as sensor elements.
In 2020 Roswell announced a partnership with IMEC to develop manufacturing techniques to enable the integration of physical structures with CMOS control and measurement circuitry (see IMEC partners with Roswell on biosensor chips).
The platform consists of a programmable semiconductor chip with a scalable sensor array architecture. Each array element consists of an electrical current meter that monitors the current flowing through a precision-engineered molecular wire, assembled to span nanoelectrodes that couple it directly into the circuit. The sensor is programmed by attaching the desired probe molecule to the molecular wire, via a central, engineered conjugation site. The observed current provides a direct, real-time electronic readout of molecular interactions of the probe. These picoamp-scale current-versus-time measurements are read out from the sensor array in digital form, at a rate of 1000 frames per second, to capture molecular interactions data.
The sensor is capable of reading DNA sequences. A DNA polymerase, the enzyme that copies DNA, is integrated into the circuit, and the result is direct electrical observation of the action of this enzyme as it copies a piece of DNA, letter by letter. The paper illustrates how these activity signals can be analyzed with machine learning algorithms to allow reading of the sequence.
“The sensors demonstrated in this paper for the first time let us listen in on these molecular communications, enabling a new and powerful view of biological information,” said co-author Professor James Tour, of Rice University. Professor Tour is one of the original developers of silicon-oxide as a non-volatile memory material now being taken forward by Weebit Nano Ltd. (see Weebit reports crossbar SiOx ReRAM array with selector).
“The goal of this work is to put biosensing on an ideal technology foundation for the future of precision medicine and personal wellness,” added Roswell co-founder and chief scientific officer Barry Merriman, PhD, the lead author of the paper. “This requires not only putting biosensing on chip, but in the right way, with the right kind of sensor. We’ve pre-shrunk the sensor element to the molecular level to create a biosensor platform that combines an entirely new kind of real-time, single-molecule measurement with a long-term, unlimited scaling roadmap for smaller, faster and cheaper tests and instruments.”
Related links and articles:
News articles:
IMEC partners with Roswell on biosensor chips
Weebit reports crossbar SiOx ReRAM array with selector
X-Fab improves silicon microfluidic manufacturing
Microfluidic MEMS aid rapid Covid-19 sequencing
Biological sensing transistor made available for Covid-19 testing
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