Cell Membrane Coated Photonic Crystal to study Receptor-Ligand Interactions

目前用于检查受体-配体相互作用的金标准分析需要昂贵且昂贵的荧光或放射性标记或蛋白质组学过程。本项目旨在通过在光子晶体上直接涂覆细胞膜来开发人工光子电池。人工光子细胞将蛋白质受体保留在其天然细胞膜环境中，并允许使用廉价的微型光谱仪对受体-配体相互作用进行无标记监测-从根本上改变了这些分析。这将产生材料科学、光子和生物界面的基础和应用知识，用于无标签、超灵敏和选择性分析，从而使未来的药物和诊断目标发现成为可能。

The current gold-standard assays for examining receptor-ligand interactions require expensive and costly fluorescent or radioactive labels or proteomics processes. This project aims to develop Artificial Photonic Cells by directly coating photonic crystals with cell membranes. The Artificial Photonic Cells retain the protein receptors in their native cell membrane environment and allow for label-free monitoring of the receptor-ligand interactions using inexpensive miniature spectrometers - radically transforming these assays. This would generate fundamental and applied knowledge of materials sciences, photonic, and biointerfaces for label-free, ultra-sensitive, and selective assays to enable future drug and diagnostics target discovery.