Application Development for Large Solid-State Nanopore Arrays

Nature has learned that tiny holes – nanopores – are useful for a lot of things, from selectively allowing the transport of specific molecules into your cells to making your heart beat. Humans have even since figured out how to exploit such systems to sequence the DNA of organisms onboard the International Space Station!

At the core of nanopore technology lies a relatively simple principle. A nanopore in an electrolyte solution conducts current in an electric field. Charged molecules in the same electric field can be pulled through the nanopore to produce measurable changes in this current. These changes can then be used to study a host of properties and phenomena, from the size and shape of individual molecules to the dynamics of molecular interactions.

While arrays of biological nanopores have found commercial application as DNA sequencers, their solid-state counterparts have thus far been limited to academic labs as individual sensors of relatively large biomolecules. This has historically limited their range of applicability, as many real-world applications rely on high throughputs only theoretically accessible to arrays of hundreds or thousands of parallelised sensors. At imec, we aim to scale the implementation of solid-state nanopore arrays for unparalleled throughput via world-class solid-state fabrication facilities, ultimately enabling a turnkey solution to many aspects of biophysics and bioengineering, from disease diagnostics and monitoring to genomic and proteomic characterisation. 

This PhD project seeks to investigate relevant applications for large solid-state nanopore arrays (e.g. ~100 parallelised sensors) through design of novel biomolecular detection schemes, parallelised electrical readout methods, and data science-driven analysis methods including machine learning and AI. In particular, this project will involve:

• The electrical characterisation of arrays of ~10-100 solid-state nanopore sensors produced at imec
• Sensor passivation and treatment to improve sensor reliability and performance via vapour-phase surface coating deposition.
• The design of experimental detection schemes that leverage parallelised array-based single-molecule sensing to improve the dynamic range of biomolecular sample quantification.
• Experimentally demonstrate the technology across a range of applications, including biomarker detection in complex biological samples, as a potential alternative to traditional optical methods.
• Developing tools or algorithms for analysing and interpreting electrical signals produced by parallelised sensor arrays – as data is expected to be in high supply, this will involve various aspects of data clustering, machine learning, and AI.

This work will be carried out in a highly interdisciplinary team at imec, Leuven. Our group’s research activities focus on the development of novel tools for health care applications, where current projects vary from lab-on-a-chip systems to photonic sensing and imaging devices. For this project, we are looking for an enthusiastic and curious Doctoral Student eager to shape tomorrow’s health care technologies, as we aim for research and development at the highest international level and expect that this technology will have a direct impact on point of care biomedical research, diagnostics, and precision medicine.