Detection of Angiogenic Growth Factor by Microcantilever Biosensors

Riccardo Castagna, PhD Student, Politecnico di Torino

Launch presentation

About the speaker

Riccardo Castagna graduated in Biotechnology at the University of Turin in March 2004.
Winning the Grant research scholarships LaGrange for Challenge of Complex Systems he spent two years at the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment of Candiolo, working on the role of Angiopoietin 1 in cancer development.
Starting from September 2006 he is a young researcher in the LATEMAR project, working at the Politecnico of Turin on the development and characterization of Lab on Chips integrated systems for genomic and proteomic analysis.
In January 2008 he started the Ph. D. studies in Molecular Biomedicine at the University of Trieste.

Abstract

Angiogenesis - the process of new blood vessel growth - plays an essential role in the development of tissues in the vertebrate embryo, and is also involved in a wide variety of physiological and pathological conditions, including metabolic diseases, cardiovascular disorders, and tumor progression. In order to achieve new insight in the cellular mechanisms that affects angiogenesis, as well as to enable the early detection of low abundant tumor biomarkers, specific and quantitative measurements of target proteins appear to be necessary. In this work, the development of a microcantiveler-based biosensor suitable to perform quantitative and high sensitive detection of specific proteins is presented. Ang-1 has been chosen as target molecule representative of the wide range of angiogenic factors, whose expression level is largely investigated in different tumors. Interesting results were achieved: Ang-1 masses as low as some picograms (corresponding to an amount lower than a femtomol) were detected in vacuum. Furthermore, specificity measurements were performed using PBS buffer solution with a non-complementary antigen (VEGF): no appreciable frequency shifts were detected, indicating a very good selectivity of the system. Recently a microfluidic platform with the MC array has been integrated and developed a Q-enhancement feed-back in order to perform online measurements directly in plasma/serum samples.

Launch presentation