CAREER: Plasmonic Nanoclusters with Built-in Artificial Antibodies for Label-free Biosensing

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1254399 - SingamaneniPlasmonic sensors hold enormous potential for the development of low-cost, label-free, point-of-care biodiagnostics, rapid chemical detection and environmental monitoring. However, two major challenges need to be overcome to reap the benefits of this class of biosensors: (i) state-of-theart plasmonic biosensors either offer limited sensitivity or are impractical for real-world applications due to their poor stability and excessive cost; (ii) these biosensors rely on natural antibodies, which are high-cost and impose severe limitations in handling, storage and device integration. We propose to realize highly sensitive and inexpensive plasmonic sensors. The focus of the proposed effort will be hierarchically ordered, self-assembled arrays of chemically synthesized plasmonic nanostructures. We will incorporate artificial monoclonal antibodies and demonstrate these to be a highly sensitive, specific, stable and low-cost biodiagnostic platform. This will be achieved through orientation-controlled molecular imprinting.This proposal will lead to development of simpler and more robust biosensors for detection of multiple important compounds. This will be achieved by replacing antibodies - complicated, expensive and unstable molecules - with artificial equivalents based on less expensive and more stable materials. In addition, novel nanotechnology approaches will be used for detection.