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Our Surface Plasmon Coupled-ELISA with Enhanced Sensitivity Will Help Realize Point-of-Care Applications for Sustainable Future

Tuesday, 30 May 2017: 17:30
Grand Salon A - Section 4 (Hilton New Orleans Riverside)
A. J. Raghavendra, J. Zhu, A. M. Rao, and R. Podila (Clemson University)
The sensitivity of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) for biomarker detection can be significantly increased through the integration of fluorescence with plasmonics. In surface plasmon coupled ELISA (SP-ELISA), the fluorophore emission is generally enhanced through the so-called physical mechanism which entails an increase in the local electric field. Despite fairly high enhancement factors, translating SP-ELISA for point-of-care applications is still hampered due to the need for focusing optics and spectrometers. Here, we show that stacked Ag and C60 films promote molecular interactions between aromatic dyes and C60 to increase emission from Rhodamine B (RhB) labeled biomolecules by 20 folds without quenching its red color emission. This new chemiplasmonic-sensing paradigm is not only superior to the physical mechanism but essential for point-of-care applications. Lastly, we demonstrate a model 96-well plate SP-ELISA assay using Immunoglobulin G.