SBIR Phase I: Long-Wave Infrared Plasmonic Biosensor

这一小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目旨在增强识别和量化生物分子、细胞、微生物及其相互作用的工具的能力。该项目的目标是证明表面等离子体共振(SPR)生物传感器的可行性，该传感器首次可以在扩展的波长域中工作，其中生物分析物通过其吸收光谱和相应的折射率变化来强烈区分。与目前的商业系统相比，这一创新如果成功，将提供更高的灵敏度和物种选择性。当生物分析物可逆地与附着在传感器表面的物种选择性生物分子识别元件结合时，将观察到生物分析物中的巨大光学变化。该项目的更广泛/商业影响是通过提供对电磁频谱的新的和重要的部分的访问来丰富和扩展经过验证的SPR生物传感器技术。SPR生物传感器市场是完全在可见光-近红外光谱区域运行的主导系统，化学物种的光谱差异相对较小。该项目旨在产生一种具有重大改进的SPR生物传感器，将在生命科学、电分析、药物开发、食品质量和安全、环境科学、气相和液态化学品、法医、国防和安全方面具有价值。特别有价值的将是它描述超快动力学相互作用的新能力，例如来自DNA测序、蛋白质/蛋白质相互作用和配体/受体识别的那些。这些对现有化学和生物传感器技术的改进有望显著扩大SPR生物传感市场。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project seeks to enhance the capability of an instrument for identifying and quantifying bio-molecules, cells, microbes, and their interactions. The goal of the project is to demonstrate the feasibility of a Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) biosensor that, for the first time, can operate in an extended wavelength domain, where biological analytes are strongly differentiated by their absorption spectra and consequential variation of refractive index. In comparison with current commercial systems, this innovation, if successful, will provide enhanced sensitivity and species selectivity. Large optical changes in biological analytes will be observed as they bind reversibly to species-selective biomolecular recognition elements attached to the sensor surface. The broader/commercial impact of this project is to enrich and extend the proven SPR biosensor technology by providing access to a new and important part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The SPR biosensor market is dominated systems that operate entirely in the visible - near infrared spectral region with relatively little spectral differentiation of chemical species. This project is intended to result in a SPR Biosensor with significant improvements that will be of value in life science, electro-analysis, drug discovery, food quality and safety, environmental science, gas-and liquid-phase chemicals, forensics, defense, and security. Of particular value will be its novel ability to delineate ultra-fast kinetic interactions such as those from DNA sequencing, protein/protein interaction, and ligand/receptor recognition. These improvements over currently available chemical and biosensor technologies are expected to enable significant expansion of the SPR biosensing market.