Diagnosis of Lung Cancer From Exhaled Breath With Silicon Biophotonic Device

The overall objective of this proposal is to develop a non-invasive, inexpensive and accurate device that detects VOCs in exhaled breath for lung cancer screening. Toward this goal, the team will design and fabricate a biophotonic platform consists of arrays of silicon micro-ring resonator sensors coated with polymers with different organic functionalities, in which each sensor is widely responsive to a variety of VOCs for the detection of lung cancer by means of breath testing. The team will identify signature VOCs as lung cancer biomarkers by comparison VOC contents between alveolar gas that directly sampled from the nodule or mass and exhaled breath using gas chromatography/ mass spectrometry. The specific aims of this proposal are as followings: Aim 1: To develop a biophotonic platform for the detection of VOCs Aim 2: To achieve multiplex detection of VOCs with high sensitivity and specificity using a novel biophotonic device. Aim 3: To evaluate the device as a lung cancer screening tool by testing both healthy and lung cancer breath samples