Development of bar-coded, highly sensitive, label-free highthroughput screening platform for endocrine disrubting compounds

内分泌干扰物(EDCs)是一种化学物质，可能会干扰人体的内分泌系统，并对人类和野生动物产生不利的发育、生殖、神经和免疫影响。它们可以模仿雌激素和雄激素等自然产生的激素，与细胞内的受体结合，阻止内源性激素，并对自然激素及其受体的产生或控制造成干扰。卫生当局越来越关注源于家庭和工业实践的环境影响控制中心对公众健康的潜在影响。尽管这些污染物在我们的水系统中的浓度通常很低，但可能会对野生动物和人类健康造成不利影响(例如，癌症风险和不利的生殖发育)。因此，对这些化合物的高灵敏度检测方法是很有需求的。我们的目标是开发一种新的检测技术，适用于水中EDCs的常规监测。这种新的监测系统在灵敏度、检测限、吞吐量和样品处理方面都将优于现有的方法。我们的检测平台将由条形码微球光谐振器(光学传感器)阵列组成，与特定的分子印迹聚合物(MIP)元件集成，用于多分析物的高通量检测。到目前为止，EDC传感器的性能通常受到其灵敏度和生物识别元件的使用的限制，如抗体或生化反应。这些生物传感器都有一个共同的缺点，即试剂昂贵，这限制了它们在常规水质监测中的使用。相比之下，我们的新型检测平台具有高灵敏度，并采用了一类合成识别元件，我们认为这些元件将比目前的检测方法更便宜，因此具有成本竞争力。

Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) are chemicals that may interfere with the body's endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. They can mimic naturally occurring hormones like estrogens and androgens, binding to receptors within cells, blocking endogenous hormones and causing interference with the production or control of natural hormones and their receptors. Health authorities are becoming more concerned about the potential public health impact of the EDCs originated from household and industrial practices. Although the concentrations of these contaminants are usually low in our water systems, there may induce adverse wildlife and human health effects (e.g. cancer risk and adverse reproductive development). Consequently, highly sensitive detection methods for these compounds are in demand. We aim to develop a novel detection technology that is suitable for routine monitoring of EDCs in water. This new monitoring system will be superior to current methodologies in terms of sensitivity, detection limit, throughput and sample processing. Our detection platform will consists of an array of bar-coded microsphere light resonators ( optical sensors) integrated with specific molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) elements for multi-analyte high-throughput detection. Until now, the performance of EDC sensors is generally limited by their sensitivity and the use of biological recognition elements, such as antibodies or biochemical reactions. These biosensors share a common shortcoming of expensive reagents, which limits their use in routine water monitoring. In contrast, our novel detection platform has a high sensitivity and employs a class of synthetic recognition elements that we believe will be less expensive and hence cost-competitive against current detection methodologies.