# Troponin Biosensor for Early Detection and Real-time Monitoring of Myocardial Infarction

> **NIH NIH R41** · EZ LAB LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY · 2022 · $301,253

## Abstract

Project Summary
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death for people in most racial and ethnic groups in the
United States. Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) (also called heart attack) is the top cause of death in CVD.
Early detection of AMI translates to earlier intervention and improves survival rates. When cardiac myocytes are
damaged, cardiac troponin (cTn), a component of the heart muscle, is released into circulation. Dynamic and
incremental elevation of blood cTn levels is indicative of an on-going event of heart injury with acute
cardiomyocyte damage. Thus, blood cTn level is routinely measured with commercial cTn immunoassays in
patients suspected of having AMI. However, current cTn immunoassays are limited in sensitivity and speed.
Since two antibodies are used in the current cTn immunoassays (one as the capture and another as the detection
agents), current cTn immunoassays require multiple step reactions with limited sensitivity. Additionally, the
assays are not performed in real time and typically take about 30 mins to get results that could miss the early
rises in cTn levels or its rate of change thus delaying diagnosis. EZ-Lab, in collaborations with investigators at
Oakland Univ., Wayne State Univ., and Univ. of Missouri-Columbia, proposes to develop a novel cTn biosensor
that allows highly sensitive (pg/ml) and real-time detection of cTn based on our years of research and
innovations in 1) uniquely designed peptide mimotope biosensing interface for label-free affinity based
electrochemical biosensor; 2) miniaturized, low cost and real-time electrochemical sensor platform. In sharp
contrast to current cTn immunoassays using two antibodies, we successfully demonstrated that peptide
mimotopes, in lieu of antibodies, when immobilized on the surface via self-assemble monolayer (SAM) can
significantly reduce the structural variability, retain biological activity, and minimize or eliminate non-specific
adsorption from interfering proteins and provide real-time, highly sensitive and selective detection of protein
antigens in human serum samples. To advance this novel peptide mimotope biosensing technology for early
detection and monitoring of AMI for clinical applications, we will rationally design peptides to form robust cTn
biosensing interface for electrochemical cTn sensors allowing one step and real-time detection of cTn in human
serum and blood samples with three research Aims: 1. Develop a highly sensitive peptide sensing interface
for detection of cTn; 2. Validate peptide SAM based cTn biosensor analytical performance using human
serum and blood samples; 3. Real-time cTn sensing in blood sample. The proposed peptide mimotope cTn
biosensor is expected to be highly sensitive and quantitative, faster than current cTn immunoassays used in the
clinics, allowing for early diagnosis of AMI at significantly lower cost for quantifying cTn biomarkers in real world
clinical samples. It is expected that our easy-to-use cTn bi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10483760
- **Project number:** 1R41HL164281-01
- **Recipient organization:** EZ LAB LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
- **Principal Investigator:** XIANGQUN ZENG
- **Activity code:** R41 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $301,253
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-04-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10483760

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10483760, Troponin Biosensor for Early Detection and Real-time Monitoring of Myocardial Infarction (1R41HL164281-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10483760. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*