https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/mustafa-alwash/week-01-hw-project-ideas/index.htmlWhat would I like to biomanufacture and why? I want to biomanufacture a low-cost, point-of-care microfluidic diagnostic chip pre-loaded with freeze-dried biological sensors (split-reporter proteins). The chip tests a single drop of blood plasma to give a clear readout for chronic neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.My motivation comes from both my personal life and my career direction: Personal Driver: I have close family members and friends who were diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease. They were fortunate enough to get diagnosed early and start treatment, but it constantly leaves me wondering: What happens when a diagnosis comes too late? Professional Focus: As a 4th-year medical student planning to specialize in neurosurgery, I want to focus my work on clinical problems where getting an early, accurate diagnosis directly changes a patient’s outcome.When patients show early symptoms of neurodegeneration, confirming a diagnosis currently requires an expensive battery of tests—including PET/MRI neuroimaging scans, spinal taps, and costly biomarker panels. These machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, making definitive testing rare or non-existent in smaller municipal hospitals and developing regions.Worse, simple blood tests for Tau protein fail because of false positives. If someone gets a concussion or has a stroke, dying brain cells dump huge amounts of normal Tau protein into their blood. A standard test measuring “total Tau” will flag a simple concussion as Alzheimer’s. To solve this, my chip uses a biological AND-gate: the sensor only glows if a protein is both misfolded into a toxic shape AND chemically hyperphosphorylated. This filters out background concussion trauma and catches true chronic neurodegeneration.Hugoen