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Surface enhanced Raman biosensor
Introduction
The importance of the detection and identification of bacterial, protein and chemical pathogens as infectious agents in people, environmental samples and food samples is well established. The detection of protein and chemical pathogens (targets) is currently most commonly done using fluorescence detection of target-receptor binding. Although very sensitive, fluorescence detection suffers from the need to label the molecular target which can also lead to alterations in target-receptor interactions caused by conformational changes or steric hindrance induced by the label. For these reasons, there is considerable effort to investigate alternatives for fluorescent detection. Label-free sensors detect the hybridization of an affinity complex using a variety of methods including optical, mechanical, and electrochemical techniques. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing is one promising optical label-free technique. Another compelling optical detection technique measures the well known Raman scattering spectra from the target biomolecules by exploiting huge scattering cross-section enhancements by roughened noble metal surfaces, or surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) surfaces. Raman spectroscopy is important because it provides an optical fingerprint of chemicals and biomolecules as it represents the vibrational frequencies of molecular bonds. Therefore, this label-free optical sensing technique has the ability to quantify molecules attached to the sensing surface, which should improve the well known problem of non-specific binding in all solid surface sensing systems. Additionally, it is desirable to have small, rapid assays that use small sample volumes and capable of detecting several compounds of species in parallel. This is significant because in many cases sample collection is limited, and sample processing also requires time. All of these factors point toward being able to detect multiple agents in parallel using small sample volumes.
This project aims to improve existing methods in surface electromagnetic enhancement on materials that are easily integrated into a label-free optical detection with a mature microfluidic platform.
Interested?
If you are interested and for instance would like to do your graduation work or practical term, please contact via the email address below.
Contact information
Mingliang Jin & Edwin Carlen
MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology
University of Twente
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
Phone: 31-53-489 3107 (Mingliang) & 31-53 489 2661
Fax: 31-53-489 3595
