Personalized medicine requires capabilities to detect and measure health-associated biomarkers with increasingly specific and sensitive methods, putting analytical chemists at the front lines of translational research. Analytical scientists must be upstream in the experimental design process because the analysis of a biospecimen (tissue, blood, etc.) presents technical and experimental design complexities. (To listen to a podcast about this feature, please go to the Analytical Chemistry multimedia page at pubs.acs.org/page/ancham/audio/index.html.
In recent years, interest in the development of highly sensitive acoustic wave devices as biosensor platforms has grown. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on AT-cut quartz resonators both in thickness excitation and in lateral excitation configurations. In this report, we demonstrate the fabrication of a ZnO solidly mounted resonator operated in thickness shear mode ͑TSM͒ using lateral field excitation of the piezoelectric film. Theoretical Christoffel equation calculations are provided to explore the conditions for excitation of a TSM wave in c-axis-oriented ZnO through lateral excitation. The existence of a TSM wave is verified through the comparison of theoretical and experimentally obtained acoustic velocity values from frequency versus thickness measurements and water loading of the resonators. A major strength of this design is that it incorporates a simple eight-layer, single-mask fabrication process compatible with existing integrated circuit fabrication processes and can be easily incorporated into multidevice arrays. With minimal electrode optimization, we have been able to fabricate resonators with nearly 100% yield that demonstrate Q values of up to 550 and K 2 values of 0.88% from testing of more than 30 devices.
Nanotechnology offers an exceptional and unique opportunity for developing a new generation of tools addressing persistent challenges to progress in cancer research and clinical care. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recognizes this potential, which is why it invests roughly $150 M per year in nanobiotechnology training, research and development. By exploiting the various capacities of nanomaterials, the range of nanoscale vectors and probes potentially available suggests much is possible for precisely investigating, manipulating, and targeting the mechanisms of cancer across the full spectrum of research and clinical care. NCI has played a key role among federal R&D agencies in recognizing early the value of nanobiotechnology in medicine and committing to its development as well as providing training support for new investigators in the field. These investments have allowed many in the research community to pursue breakthrough capabilities that have already yielded broad benefits. Presented here is an overview of how NCI has made these investments with some consideration of how it will continue to work with this research community to pursue paradigm-changing innovations that offer relief from the burdens of cancer.
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