Quantum Diagnostics

The past decade has witnessed measurement at the quantum limits of biology: single nucleic acids measured massively in parallel, single proteins amplified and measured, and many approaches analyzing the contents of single cells.

Measuring single cells and molecules provides valuable information on tissue heterogeneity and disease progression, pushing the limit of diagnostics. Despite these breakthroughs, adoption has been limited by the requirement for significant new infrastructure and expertise.

To address this issue, we are developing simple and robust platforms to create and operate on sub-nanoliter volumes with minimal instrumentation. We use ferrofluids to create uniform droplets and manipulate them with simple magnet motions instead of complex pumps.

The lab also produces lab-on-a-particle systems optimized for cell adhesion, nucleic acid or protein binding, encapsulation, and segregation of uniformly sized aqueous volumes.

Together, these approaches lay the foundation for Quantum Diagnostic Platforms that can accelerate adoption of the most sensitive possible single-entity assays and democratize single-molecule and single-cell technologies.