SBIR-STTR Award

Illicit drug trafficking has increasingly been used to fund terrorist groups since the end of the Cold War. As illicit drugs increasingly finance terrorism, soldiers in the U.S. Army are increasingly playing an active role in identifying these drugs in difficult and demanding environments. Unfortunately, these devices have many shortcomings, such as being too expensive, bulky and heavy, being non-ruggedized, requiring a high level of training, only being able to detect a single drug and being prone to false-positives. As such, there is a great need for a technology that overcomes all of these shortcomings and also fit in with the leaner, smarter, more lethal and agile Army as defined by the Armys Force 25 and Beyond strategy. In this project, SensoDx Inc. is developing its Programmable Bio-Nano-Chip (p-BNC) technology that will permit detection of illicit drugs in the field. During Phase I, the potential suitability of the p-BNC platform for field-based detection and identification of drugs will be demonstrated, through the development of proof-of-concept of a p-BNC multiplexed prototype assay for three target drug analytes, representative of three classes of drugs: JWH-018 (synthetic cannabinoid), methamphetamine (phenethylamines), and morphine (opiates).

Illicit drug trafficking has increasingly been used to fund terrorist groups since the end of the Cold War. As illicit drugs increasingly finance terrorism, soldiers in the U.S. Army are increasingly playing an active role in identifying these drugs in difficult and demanding environments. Unfortunately, these devices have many shortcomings, such as being too expensive, bulky and heavy, being non-ruggedized, requiring a high level of training, only being able to detect a single drug and being prone to false-positives. In this project, SensoDx is developing its Programmable Bio-Nano-Chip (p-BNC) technology that will permit detection of illicit drugs in the field. During Phase II, SensoDx plans to: a) expand the classes of drugs that it targets from three to five, by the addition of drugs representative of a Cathinine and a hallucinogen; and b) increase the panel size for the detectable drugs from three to eight drugs. The ultimate goal is to detect all eight drugs in a single test that takes less than 5 minutes.----------The synthetic opioids fentanyl and carfentanil pose an imminent national security threat, given the ease with which they can be obtained, their low lethal doses, and their potential for weaponized use. The purpose of this agreement is to adapt SensoDx’s high-performance miniaturized diagnostics platform based on a programmable bio-nano-chip, with embedded artificial intelligence, to enable U.S. Armed Forces to identify and quantify fentanyl and carfentanil in the field using a simple and rapid test. This capability will support Armed Forces’ ability to meet critical situations involving these drugs with appropriate countermeasures. Current portable drug detection devices have shortcomings, such as being too expensive, bulky and heavy, being non-ruggedized, requiring a high level of training, only detecting a single drug and being prone to false-positives. In this Sequential Phase II proposal, SensoDx plans to: 1) develop a high precision low cost miniaturized optics module to drive down both size and cost of instrumentation, 2) complete carfentanil and fentanyl assay development and validation, and 3) demonstrate assay performance on an updated instrument. The proposed technology meets desired features in that the platform is easy-to-use, portable, lightweight and rugged, while providing rapid (5 minutes or less) and highly accurate quantitative data.