Grant: Engage Grants Program

The proposed research project supports collaboration between Dr. Vladimir Kitaev from Wilfrid Laurier University (Principal Investigator, PI) and Nicoya Lifesciences Inc. (Nicoya), a company based out of Waterloo, Ontario. Nicoya is developing medical point-of-care biosensing instruments operated at home by patients to manage chronic illnesses. Similar to portable glucose sensors, Nicoya is developing instruments to continually monitor other chronic conditions such as organ failure and blood coagulation through a pinprick blood sample. Nicoya's devices incorporate gold nanoparticles, which makes sensors sensitive to minute concentrations of disease biomarkers in blood. Nicoya found that the devices based on commercially available nanoparticles have limited sensitivity, and was looking for scientific experts in the nanoparticles field who can help improve it. Such expertise was found in the company's hometown, Waterloo. Dr. Kitaev's research group has an established expertise in producing the world's most advanced silver and gold nanoparticles. To help Nicoya, Dr. Kitaev's team will use its recent scientific findings in shape-controlled nanoparticles and will develop prototypes for Nicoya that have highest biomarker sensitivity and longest shelf life. Equipped with best nanoparticles, Nicoya's instruments will have a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.