5.1. Detection Formats 475 5.2. Food Quality and Safety Analysis 477 5.2.1. Pathogens 477 5.2.2. Toxins 479 5.2.3. Veterinary Drugs 479 5.2.4. Vitamins 480 5.2.5. Hormones 480 5.2.6. Diagnostic Antibodies 480 5.2.7. Allergens 481 5.2.8. Proteins 481 5.2.9. Chemical Contaminants 481 5.3. Medical Diagnostics 481 5.3.1. Cancer Markers 481 5.3.2. Antibodies against Viral Pathogens 482 5.3.3. Drugs and Drug-Induced Antibodies 483 5.3.4. Hormones 483 5.3.5. Allergy Markers 483 5.3.6. Heart Attack Markers 484 5.3.7. Other Molecular Biomarkers 484 5.4. Environmental Monitoring 484 5.4.1. Pesticides 484 5.4.2. 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) 485 5.4.3. Aromatic Hydrocarbons 485 5.4.4. Heavy Metals 485 5.4.5. Phenols 485 5.4.6. Polychlorinated Biphenyls 487 5.4.7. Dioxins 487 5.5. Summary 488 6. Conclusions 489 7. Abbreviations 489 8. Acknowledgment 489 9. References 489

Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensors for Detection of Chemical and Biological Species

Sensitive optical biosensors for unlabeled targets: a review.

A rapidly emerging field in lab-on-a-chip (LOC) research is the development of devices to improve the health of people in developing countries. In this review, we identify diseases that are most in need of new health technologies, discuss special design criteria for LOC devices to be deployed in a variety of resource-poor settings, and review past research into LOC devices for global health. We focus mainly on diagnostics, the nearest-term application in this field.

Lab-on-a-chip devices for global health: Past studies and future opportunities

Towards integrated and sensitive surface plasmon resonance biosensors: a review of recent progress.

We report on a unified theoretical model of the resolution of SPR sensors which makes it possible to predict the ultimate performance of all major configurations of SPR sensors. The theory indicates that the performance of SPR sensors is independent of the method of excitation of surface plasmons (prism or grating coupling) or the method of modulation (amplitude, angular or wavelength) and depends dominantly on the noise properties of the light source and detector. Results of the theoretical analysis are compared with the performance reported for several SPR sensors to illustrate that the best state-of-art SPR sensors are approaching their theoretical limits. Possibilities for further advances in the performance of SPR sensor technology are discussed.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors: approaching their limits?

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has become well established as a laboratory tool for the study of biological binding reactions, but has had limited application outside of this context. With the goal of moving SPR applications from high-cost systems designed for central laboratories to low-cost, portable electronic systems designed for the field, Texas Instruments Inc. (TI), has developed Spreeta, a line of compact, integrated SPR sensor components. This paper reports on the performance of TI’s newest SPR device, the Spreeta 2000, measured using instruments developed by TI and by Prolinx Inc., who are developing advanced molecular interaction analysis technology utilizing a proprietary version of Spreeta 2000. Noise optimization techniques including averaging and sum normalization are discussed, and the dependence of refractive index (RI) noise on these techniques is measured. For a measurement time of 0.8 s, a noise level of 1.8×10 −7 RI is observed. To estimate the accuracy potentially obtainable using the sensor, the smoothness of the sensor response is measured using RI gradients, and is found to be 0.2% over a change in RI of 0.04. As a demonstration of the capabilities of the Spreeta 2000 when incorporated into an appropriate instrumentation system, an automated assay for mouse IgG is presented.

R Kaiser

Papers

Performance of the Spreeta 2000 integrated surface plasmon resonance affinity sensor