CAREER: Optofluidic Lasers at the Liquid-Liquid Interface: A Versatile Biosensing Platform

职业：液-液界面的光流激光器：一个多功能的生物传感平台项目目标这个职业项目研究生物兼容和生物可配置的光流激光器，在液-液界面上自组装，并探索它们在生物科学中的变革性应用。这个CAREER项目整合了研究、教育和外展组件，以引领医疗保健领域光流体激光器和生物传感技术的创新。这种新方法是由光子学、微流体学、MEMS和生物纳米技术的多学科集成实现的，它创造了一种新型的全液体激光阵列，可以由生物/化学分子和流体控制和配置。该项目包括面向本科生和研究生的突出的跨学科教育和培训内容。学校还制定了计划，以促进代表性不足的学生的参与，这充分利用了UTA作为历史上黑人大学和少数族裔服务机构之一的地位。特别注意招收和留住工程专业的女学生。最后，拟议的项目有广泛的外展计划，以培训高中学生和工程教师，并向公众传播知识和研究发现。本CAREER项目的目标是开发一组生物兼容和生物可配置的自组装光流体激光器，并研究这种新型光流体激光器支持的多功能生物传感技术平台，以在各种生物和生物医学传感应用中实现卓越的检测灵敏度，选择性和吞吐量。所提出的多流体激光器具有限制在液-液界面的单层激光增益材料（即只有几纳米厚），允许生物和生化分子访问并直接调制激光增益材料，从而形成增强检测灵敏度和选择性的基础。提出的激光传感平台用于快速、低成本的多路癌症生物标志物检测，最终目标是解决当前医疗诊断和健康监测方面的挑战。这项研究的成果将导致生物激发光流体器件和工程领域的新发展和发现，以及极端传感和极端光子学的基础研究。

Proposal TitleCAREER: Optofluidic Lasers at the Liquid-Liquid Interface: A Versatile BiosensingPlatformProject GoalsThis CAREER project investigates bio compatible and bio configurable optofluidiclasers that are self assembled at the liquid-liquid interface and explores theirtransformative applications in bioscience.Nontechnical AbstractThis CAREER project integrates research, educational, and outreach components tolead the innovations in both optofluidic lasers and biosensing technologies inhealthcare. The novel approach is enabled by multidisciplinary integration ofphotonics, microfluidics, MEMS, and bionanotechnologies that creates a newmodality of all liquid laser array that can be controlled and configured bybio/chemical molecules and fluids.The project includes prominent interdisciplinary education and trainingcomponents for undergraduate and graduate students. Plans are also in place topromote involvement of underrepresented students, which leverages the UTA'sstatus as one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities and MinorityServing Institutions. Special attention is paid to recruit and retain female students inengineering. Finally, the proposed project has extensive outreach programs to trainhigh school students and engineering teachers and to disseminate knowledge andresearch discoveries to the general public.Technical AbstractThe objective of this CAREER project is to develop an array of bio compatible andbio configurable optofluidic lasers that are self assembled at the liquid liquidinterface and study this novel optofluidic laser enabled versatile biosensingtechnology platform to achieve exceptional detection sensitivity, selectivity, andthroughput in various biological and biomedical sensing applications. The proposedoptofluidic laser features a monolayer laser gain material (i.e., only a fewnanometers thick) confined at the liquid liquid interface, which allows biologicaland biochemical molecules to access and directly modulate the laser gain material,and thus forms the basis of enhanced detection sensitivity and selectivity. Theproposed laser sensing platform is studied for rapid and low cost multiplexedcancer biomarker detection towards a final goal of addressing current challenges inthe point of care medical diagnostics and health monitoring. The outcomesgenerated from this research will lead to new development and discoveries in thefield of bioinspired optofluidic devices and engineering, as well as fundamentalresearch on extreme sensing and extreme photonics.