Initiative May Help Detect Biotoxins

Since Sept. 1, Harvard has overseen the implementation of a major new interdisciplinary research initiative in the field of nano and micro-electromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) which could potentially be used to detect biological toxins in air or water.

Affiliated with Harvard Medical School, the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences within Harvard College, and the physics department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the new program, called the Harvard Center for Microfluidic and Plasmonic Systems, will investigate a new type of NEMS/MEMS system based on metallic nanostructures that support particles known as surface plasmons (SP).

“What’s interesting about surface plasmons is that they enable electromagnetic energy to be concentrated into tiny volumes that are only tens of nanometers across, so it will enable you to generate tiny intense spots of light that are far smaller than you can get just with focusing light with a lens,” said Kenneth B. Crozier, assistant professor of electrical engineering and director of the new program.

This SP technology can be used to detect the composition of DNA present in samples of air or water. The new system would be more compact and accurate than present biosensing technology, he said, and would be a useful tool in fighting terrorism, Crozier said.

“They want to be able to monitor biological toxins such as anthrax in air as well as in water, and they want to be able to have new very compact systems that they can deploy in places such as airports and railway stations to monitor the air and make sure that no one’s putting anything harmful into the air supply,” he said.

Another application of SP technology is the bioimaging of infectious organisms.

In a collaborative effort among members of Harvard Medical School and Draper Laboratory, scientists are developing SP technology that would enable researchers to detect the movement of a single poliovirus through an artificial cell membrane. The new technology could act as a vaccine development tool, said Dale N. Larson, Harvard Medical School Director of the Technology and Engineering Center.

The new system would make the production of new drugs cheaper and more effective by allowing researchers and pharmaceutical companies to observe the effects of new drugs early on in the expensive drug development process, Larson said.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the central research agency for the US Department of Defense—and local industries are providing $2 million to support the program over the course of three years. DARPA, which funds ten other NEMS/MEMS research centers around the nation, contributes about two-thirds of the funding for the Harvard center, and private companies are backing the rest.

“The combining of the academic research with industrial partners does a good job of pushing us towards targeting our research so that it has more of an impact on society,” Larson said.