ADELPHI, Md. – Army researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory invented a breakthrough tool for rapidly identifying novel proteins with desirable binding properties at a fraction of the cost, accelerating the pace of Army advancements.
Binding agents are a key ingredient in the development of many important Army technologies and platforms, including applications in material repair and energetic composites. However, the Army’s ability to find new and better protein binding agents was hindered by the limitations of the existing research tools, which made the process slow and cumbersome.
This problem spurred ARL’s world-class team of scientists to invent Kappa(k)Chip, a microfluidic device that enables researchers to find the right proteins for specific binding applications much faster than before.
“Nothing like this device exists right now,” said Dr. Jose Wippold, ARL bioengineer and co-inventor. “The kappa(k)Chip will make it much easier for researchers to find proteins and novel binding agents, especially those that meet specific Army requirements and conditions that industry doesn’t provide.”
The kappa(k)Chip is currently undergoing review at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and ARL is actively engaging with industry partners who may be interested in transitioning this technology for both Army and private sector applications.
Once the kappa(k)Chip is available to industry for licensing, users can apply the device directly on the metal surface of ships, planes or other platforms to test all at once how well thousands of different proteins stick to the surface to identify the best proteins for adhesion.
“Current screening technologies are rudimentary and very time-consuming,” said Wippold. “We created the kappa(k)Chip, which is specifically designed to reduce the time to discovery, to match the pace of Army transformation.”
According to Wippold, the kappa(K)Chip can screen billions of protein candidates about 24 times faster, as well as 200 times more cost-efficiently, than the current methods available.
An accompanying software analysis tool employs artificial intelligence to process the large volume of complex image data generated by the kappa(k)Chip.
“With kappa(k)Chip, you can now get done one month’s worth of experiments in one day,” Wippold said. “This device will dramatically reduce the time and money spent on finding the composite polymers and binders that the Army needs for its strategic mission.”
Wippold explained that the invention of the kappa(k)Chip also provided a great learning opportunity to showcase the process of solving Army problems to the next generation of scientific talent in academia.
Over the course of three years, three student interns from the University of Maryland assisted Wippold in validating the kappa(k)Chip and its workflow as part of the National Security Scholars Summer Internship Program.
This partnership between ARL and UMD highlights the importance of not only overcoming the Army’s unique scientific challenges but also teaching the future STEM workforce how to surmount those challenges to advance the Army mission.
“The interns in my team all worked hard in the lab and played a big part in the experimentation,” Wippold said. “Through this work, they gained first-hand experience and knowledge of best-in-class defense research.”
More information about this Army-relevant research is available in the published research paper, titled “Kappa(κ)Chip: a modular microfluidic device for analyte screening using parallelized assays and a multiple shear rate approach.”
ARL’s world-class team of research and business specialists collaborate with partners who are interested in delivering disruptive technologies for the Army and the warfighter. For more information on how to partner with ARL, visit the Opportunities for Technology Transfer page on the ARL website.
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DEVCOM ARL is the Army’s sole fundamental research laboratory serving as the nexus of science between the military, academia and industry. Operating under U.S. Army Futures and Concepts Command and the U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command, ARL executes globally recognized research to accelerate delivery of war-winning, disruptive technologies for tomorrow’s Army.
For information, visit the Army Research Laboratory website.
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