Combining surface enzyme chemistry, plasmons and nanoparticles for ultrasensitive bioaffinity measurements

PHYS 37

Iuliana Sendroiu, i.send@uci.edu and Robert M. Corn, rcorn@uci.edu. Department of Chemistry, University of California-Irvine, 1102 Natural Sciences 2, Irvine, CA 92697-2025
Surface bioaffinity biosensors have become invaluable biotechnological tools for the rapid, multiplexed detection of biomolecules. In the last decade, a number of surface-sensitive spectroscopic techniques based on changes in the local optical index of refraction near an interface upon adsorption have emerged as attractive alternatives to traditional fluorescence-based detection methods for surface bioaffinity biosensing. For example, we have successfully applied surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRI) to measure the bioaffinity adsorption of DNA, RNA, antibodies, proteins and biomarkers. In this talk I will describe our recent efforts to create the next generation of ultrasensitive (femtomolar or less) biosensors which use a combination of (i) surface enzyme chemistry, (ii) nanoparticle surface incorporation and (iii) nanoparticle-enhanced diffraction gratings.