Non-Destructive Detection and Separation of Radiation Damaged Cells in Miniaturized, Inexpensive Device, Phase II

Our objective is to develop and demonstrate a novel microfluidic device for non-destructive identification, sorting and counting of radiation damaged cells. A major thrust, using microarray experiments, is the discovery of unique cell surface markers for identification of radiation-damaged cells.

The end product of the proposed SBIR effort will be a first-of-its-kind, commercially available, compact, low-cost, integrated device for sorting of radiation damaged cells. This device will greatly aid in NASA's efforts to minimize radiation hazard, and develop countermeasures, enabled by fundamental understanding of radiation biological effects at the molecular and cellular level. The device will be of direct use to NASA's ground-based research facilities and amenable for space deployment as well (in-situ gene expression studies in space). In addition, the technology can easily be modified to benefit research efforts focused on other space-induced biological phenomena such as bone loss, immune modulation, oxidative stress among others. It is also expected that the developed technology will find ready applications in the following civilian markets: ? Pharmaceutical and Drug Discovery Companies ? Pre-clinical and Clinical Researchers (in particular stem cell and oncology researchers) ? Hospital & Health Site Monitoring (for nuclear medicine, immune ex-vivo treatments)

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.