Plasmon-Enhanced Chiroptical Biosensors

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Professor Vincent Rotello and his group at University of Massachusetts are supported by the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program and the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry program in the Division of Chemistry and the Nano-Biosensing program in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport System (CBET) for an International Collaboration in Chemistry (ICC) grant to work with the groups of Graeme Cooke and Malcolm Kadodwala (University of Glasgow, UK) to create new biosensors based on plasmon-enhanced chiroptical sensing. This technique is highly sensitive and provides structural information of adsorbed analyte proteins. The team will apply this information-rich transduction technique to array-based sensing to develop highly responsive sensors capable of detecting minute changes in serum protein levels in a rapid and reproducible fashion. The proposed research program features both fundamental and applied research goals. Fundamentally, the researchers will to be explore nanoscale chiroptical behavior, developing new insights into the interactions of plasmonic fields with chiral systems. On the applied side, teh UMass and UGlasgow researchers will be tuning and optimizing synthetic systems, self-assembly, and nanopatterning to create more efficient sensor systems that employ the information-rich output of the chiroptical sensors to provide rapid and effective biosensing. This project will also provide excellent training for students: exchange programs between the groups will advance the research, draw together the complementary strands of the program, and transfer expertise between labs. Further efforts to extend the proposed research to minority participants will be made through the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation at UMass and the SURE REU program. The United Kingdom groups are supported by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Different proteins interact differently with polarized light. The signature that is generated by these interactions provides both insight into protein structure and allows the protein to be identified. This technique is known as circular dichroism (CD), and is typically performed using large amounts of protein. In this proposed research the researchers will use nanopatterned materials to provide highly efficient application of CD to minute quantities of protein. The resulting technology will be applied to protein sensing, providing a potential tool for creating diagnostic devices for detecting disease through changes in protein level.