K-One®:
world's most innovative surface chemistry

Diagnostic tests and other in vitro analysis tools generally employ biomolecules (e.g., antibodies) to capture target analytes (e.g., antigens) within a biological sample. These biomolecules, also referred to as ligands, are commonly immobilized on solid surfaces such as nanoparticles, chips, or electrodes, whose optical or electrical properties allow for the detection of the target once captured by the ligand. Mastering the interactions at the surface is crucial, as it ultimately determines the efficiency and reliability of the assay.
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Although surface chemistries are commonly utilized for ligand immobilization on chips, their application in nanoparticle bioconjugation requires more resources. As a result, many test developers opt for passive bioconjugation, a standardized, simpler, and less costly method. In this approach, since the surface interactions are not controlled, ligands bind spontaneously and randomly to the surface of the nanoparticles, resulting in suboptimal functionalization. For more complex applications that require the detection of smaller concentrations of analytes, the passive method falls short.
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This is where surface chemistry comes into play.
Coating nanoparticles (or chips) creates reactive sites on the surface, enabling ligands to covalently bind through their functional groups and form strong and stable bonds. This results in enhanced control over the exposure, orientation, density, and distribution of the ligands. Ultimately, surface chemistry is used to optimize and enhance key performance parameters of diagnostic assays and biosensors, such as sensitivity, specificity, selectivity, reproducibility, and stability. While this is the theoretical promise, the practical effectiveness of surface chemistries can vary significantly, with most of the current market solutions failing to meet the desired performance requirements. In the subsequent section, we will delve into what distinguishes our K-One® technology.

As highlighted in the previous section, mastering surface interactions is crucial for enhancing the performance of assays and in vitro analyses.

While surface chemistries are essential in this quest, very little innovation has been made in this domain since the 90s, when Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAM), coatings with a thickness of a few nanometers, were developed. Kimialys’ patented chemistry was initially developed in the early 2010s by Kimialys' co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Claude Nogues, and her team while working on gene expression in cell extracts, a highly complex biological medium, using gold SPR sensor chips. The primary goal was to eliminate non-specific bindings that could not be prevented by existing coatings. After successful experiments, this newly developed coating was further refined over a decade across a large variety of use cases to become our current K-One® technology, being the most effective gold surface treatment to detect biomolecules to date.