Congratulations to Assistant Professor Kyle D. Allen, along with his collaborators Professor Jon Dobson (BME/MSE) and Associate Professor David Arnold (ECE), for recently receiving a UF Research Opportunity Seed Fund on their proposal entitled “Magnetic Nanoparticle/Biomarker Harvesting Technologies for the Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Osteoarthritis”. 

The Research Opportunity Seed Fund is an annual seed grant program that targets interdisciplinary, faculty-initiated research initiatives with potential for extramural support. The program focuses on new projects and/or new collaborative partnerships. The 2013 Research Opportunity Fund received 46 proposals submitted by the colleges after internal review.  Those proposals were then reviewed by faculty panels using the primary/secondary/tertiary reviewer system.  Panel funding recommendations were reviewed and approved by the Vice President for Research, and sixteen awards were made.

This support of Dr. Allen’s proposal will further develop the group’s magnetic nanoparticle-based technique to collect osteoarthritis biomarkers (termed magnetic harvesting). Through the use of magnetic nanoparticles and a magnetic microneedle (pictured), magnetic harvesting can potentially be used to collect molecular diagnostics from a joint space without the need to remove tissue or synovial fluid.  Long-term, the group hopes to develop this technology as a method to diagnose early-stage osteoarthritis in both large and small joints.