PROJECT SUMMARY This project aims to address the current gap in technology for rapid lipids profiling. A point-of-care technology that provides quick detection will impact healthcare management by leveraging patient’s proactive participation. In pursuance of this goal, we will develop an ion mobility chemical analysis technology, which provides chemical information with molecular level specificity, for disease diagnostics and monitoring and identification of pathogens. The project will focus on a proof-of- concept technology for a portable molecular analyzer device that can be utilized to analyze breath, saliva, blood pricks in its mature stage for markers of disease. The new device will be designed based on extensive ion trajectory simulations that will provide the geometrical as well as optimal operating parameters. Optimal designs will be used to build prototypes that will be evaluated in terms of sensitivity and selectivity for detecting targeted molecules to demonstrate a working prototype in conjunction with a mass spectrometer.

PROJECT NARRATIVE This project will develop a compact high resolution atmospheric pressure ion mobility analyzer for point-of-care diagnostics and disease progression monitoring. Guided by theoretical modeling this project will provide the proof-of-concept experiments for the new device. The performance evaluation will include the sensitivity and resolution of individual lipids and their mixtures.