NanoBioTek, LLC

About NanoBioTek

NanoBioTek (NBT) is a biotechnology company founded in 2005. It is located in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, and its goal is to design and build devices, sensors and systems aimed at solving biomedical problems such as detecting cancer at its earliest stage. NBT also has research programs in Bioinformatics (proteomics, genomics, cancer tumor analysis), Neuroscience, Systems Biology (Biological Hybrid Computer) and Digital Signal Processing (Speech Processing, EEG and EKG signal processing, Artificial Neural Networks). NBT collaborates with state universities such as University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University.

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Cancer Research

NBT is developing sensors that will detect cancer at its earliest stage. The main area of research is liquid biopsies, in which nanotechnology is used to capture and quantify CTCs (circulating tumor cells) and cfDNA (cell-free DNA) from a patient's blood sample. Functionalized micro and nano magnetic beads, graphene nanopores and FRET are some of the nanotechnology tools used for this purpose.

Neuroscience

At NBT we are interested in reverse engineering the inner workings of the brain. The main goal is to explain how the brain executes algorithms to perform its tasks. We found an unexplored mechanism of memory storage based on a phenomenom called Persistent Activity. Memory Units formed by this mechanism, which we call Neural Flip-Flops, are neural circuits found in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the hippocampus, that hold one bit of information in a non-Hebbian way. Based on this neural flip-flop we also show that connecting 31 of those circuits with a net of inter neurons, the brain computes the sum of two 1-digit number, a task we learn when we are in elementary school. The next step is to show how the brain executes sequential logic following an algorithm, i.e. adding two 2-digit numbers.

Bioinformatics

NanoBioTek (NBT) is developing a Mobile Application & Platform that will leverage the most relevant up to date information about proteins, their genes, structures, interactive 3D X-ray crystallography images, biological functions and binding information. Such Mobile App does no currently exist. The goal is to put all the critical protein information on the researcher's palm of the hand. The information will be comprehensive, accurate and well organized and presented in an amenable easy to use format. The data have been imported from the most important public Biological Databases such as GenBank (NCBI), UniProt, Protein Data Bank (PDB), ExPASy enzyme database, Biogrid, Binding Database and others.

Biological Hybrid Computer

NanoBioTek (NBT) is developing a Biological Hybrid (analog/digital) Computer that better simulates biological processes. The objective is to develop specialized hardware and software to simulate biological processes that involve hundreds and even thousands of variables. The state-of-the-art of these simulations involves parallel distributed digital computers and software that demand significant efforts in programming and that have elevated costs. This proposed platform not only will perform faster but will have significantly reduced costs while been more accurate due to analog calculations that are currently approximated by Boolean functions.

Digital Signal Processing

In the area of digital signal processing (DSP), NBT has developed systems and methods for:

  • Speaker identification based on the unique speech signature of a person's voice.
  • Identification of an unknown macro molecule such as a protein based on its unique nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum.
  • A Mathematical Algorithm to Improve the Resolution of Magnetic Force Microscopy (MFM) Images.
  • Several algorithms for processing biological signals suchs as EKG and EEG
  • Several methods for designing FIR and IIR digital filters