Grant: Idea to Innovation

Cannabis products are widely used as therapeutic and recreational drugs. The main target to measure impairment is a cannabis molecule called THC. THC is a common target for drug screening in the medical, athletic and law enforcement contexts. Since THC impairs motor functions, cannabis use is strictly prohibited before operating a motor vehicle or heavy machinery. Currently, there are technologies to detect THC but it suffers from high costs, bulky infrastructure, lengthy sample-to-answer results, and not user-friendly. Furthermore, all the current technologies only detect THC, and this alone does not provide an accurate assessment of impairment. A recent technology, called "EMMA-Sense" (Electrochemical Multiplatform Microfluidics Aptamer based Sensor) has been developed by Dr. Shih and his lab to enable end-users to use electrochemical detection of THC with very high sensitivity. End users can provide their saliva into a tube, inject their saliva into the device (via tube), and detect THC in one minute using their cellphone. We showed much success with real saliva samples spiked with THC, however, the fabrication of these devices are not mass manufacturable and it cannot detect other types of cannabis molecules. For this to become a commercial product, we are required to devise a mass manufacturable method for our devices and to detect multiple cannabis molecules, not just THC. Therefore, we plan to achieve these goals by designing and discovering new methods for sensing different cannabis molecules (with the help of Dr. Jonathan Perrault, INRS), design devices that can be scaled-up to mass production methods (with the help from StarFish Medical), and evaluate the new devices with saliva spiked with the different cannabis molecules. We will also have our industrial partner, Strem Biotechnologies, to evaluate the technology and to provide feedback on how we can improve the usability of the technology. These are critical steps that will increase the value of our technology and make it ready for our receptor company, Strem Biotechnology, who will potentially license and market the system.