# Engineering pathogen triggered biomineralization to enable a new generation of point-of-care tests

> **NIH NIH R21** · TEXAS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE · 2021 · $247,500

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Biomineralization is a coalescence of organic (soft) and inorganic (hard) chemistries where proteins or
peptides borne on a close-knit macromolecular scaffold serve as nucleation sites for salts to precipitate from
solution and grow into crystals. When these proteins or peptide motifs are free in solution phase at low
concentrations, biomineralization does not occur. We aim to harness this concentration dependent
phenomenon to formulate a new generation of pathogen specific assays. Biomineralizing motifs will be fused
to antibodies specific to macromolecular scaffolds of pathogens, so that the presence of pathogen will cluster
the fusions, concentrating them to trigger crystal formation. The approach requires no washing steps and
should give a visible readout in this feasibility study for an exploratory point-of-care assay. We will first isolate
protein motifs capable of driving the formation of physiological buffer salt crystals from solutions. We will then
employ Filovirus preparations and pre-existing antibodies against polyvalent viral cores to assess
biomineralization potential of motif-antibody fusions and establish limits of detection (LOD) for Ebola and
Marburg viruses to benchmark our system. Finally, we will engineer mutants of the motifs to understand
drivers of biomineralization, accelerating the process, reducing assay times and lowering LOD. While initially
meant as a point-of-care assay feasibility study, the process should also be addressable by conductivity
measurements and imaging for biosensing applications. If successful, future developments could also include
retuning the process to operate against adjacent nucleic acid sequence targets by fusing the biomineralizing
motifs to oligonucleotide probes. Convenient and inexpensive diagnostics that don’t require vast infrastructure
investment are desperately needed in the field, especially for emerging zoonoses in resource limited
geographies. Our feasibility study will show whether biomineralization can contribute to solving this problem
and offer a paradigm shifting parallel track for further development to help safeguard human health.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10129278
- **Project number:** 5R21AI152200-02
- **Recipient organization:** TEXAS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- **Principal Investigator:** ANDREW HAYHURST
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $247,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-04-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10129278

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10129278, Engineering pathogen triggered biomineralization to enable a new generation of point-of-care tests (5R21AI152200-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-03 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10129278. Licensed CC0.

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