I-Corps: Plasmonic Microarray Chips for Microbial Identification

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to enhance the development of plasmonic microchips that enable microbial analysis in complex samples. This technology can have broad application in laboratory research, water quality assessment, food safety, and human health screening. The simplified sample preparation is advantageous for time sensitive testing, and the improved performance offers a technical feasibility for identifying microbial strains and bacterial contaminants using inexpensive bench-top mass spectrometric instruments. The method can be further adopted to identify viruses based on their lipid corona. This technology eliminates issues experienced with older, laborious techniques and accelerates the understanding of microorganisms’ impact in real-time.This I-Corps project explores metal-enhanced plasmonic properties on microarrays for bacterial identification. Manipulation of metal layer structures offers fluorescence imaging localization, high throughput analysis, and enhanced Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization (MALDI) - Mass Spectrometer (MS) performance. The technique is based on lipidomic profiling on microchips, where sample location is pinpointed with fluorescent imaging for more accurate mass spectrometry analysis. The microchip is transferable to other technique platforms for identification of a range of components including metabolites and lipids at the single cell level that may lead to swift microbial identification.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.