Date of Award
Spring 5-15-2020
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
A broad range of biomarkers continue to emerge as potentially important parameters for early detection of many pathological conditions.1 A disease biomarker (e.g. protein, a fragment of a pro-tein, DNA/RNA, or metabolites) is a ‘molecular signature’ of the physiological state of patient at specific time and is therefore extremely important for early and possibly pre-symptomatic diagno-sis and accurate monitoring of therapeutic intervention. Relevant concentrations of biomarkers related to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, inflammation, and neurological disorders can range in many orders of magnitude from μg/ml levels to sub-fg/ml, some of which possibly still remain unidentified due to the lack of simple and sensitive bioanalytical tools. Moreover, there is an unmet need for stable biosensors for point-of-care (POC) diagnostics to provide accessibility to patients in developing countries, remote areas, and other resource-limited settings. In the first part of the thesis, we harness the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of plas-monically active materials (e.g. “plasmonic patch”, “plasmonic fluor”), and show that plasmon-enhanced fluorescence can vastly improve the sensitivity of a broad variety of bioanalytical meth-ods, such as fluorophore-linked immunosorbent assays (FLISA), multiplexed bead-based fluoro-immunoassay, protein arrays, immunocytochemistry/immunofluorescence (ICC/IF), and flow cy-tometry. In the second part of thesis, we focus on the design of molecular recognition element at the inter-face between plasmonic nanostructures and target biomolecule. We have designed specific and sensitive plasmonic biosensors based on synthetic biorecognition elements (artificial antibodies), to realize specific, stable, and sensitive detection of multiple protein biomarkers. Various funda-mental aspects related to the use of artificial antibodies such as specificity and stability have been systematically investigated. Overall, we have realized ultrasensitive and stable biodetection platform based on plasmonically-active materials, which can be potentially deployed in point-of-care and resource-limited settings
Language
English (en)
Chair
Srikanth Singamaneni
Committee Members
Guy Genin, Rohan Mishra, Shantanu Chakrabartty, Jeremiah Morrissey,
Comments
Permanent URL: https://doi.org/10.7936/qz5v-rf15