Event
Special Bioengineering Seminar: Ian White
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Pepco Room, Kim Engineering Building
Professor Yang Tao
(301) 405-1189
ytao@umd.edu
A New Optofluidic Ring Resonator Biosensor for the Study of Disease at the Molecular Level
Presented by Ian White
Biological Engineering Department
University of Missouri
The development of new optical biosensors that eliminate the need for fluorescent markers has been hotly pursued in the last decade. As a result, a number of photonic configurations have been demonstrated that provide excellent sensitivity without the cost, complexity, and additional experimental steps required for fluorescence-based assays. In general, these optical label-free sensors typically consist of an optical structure on a planar surface. However, we have developed and demonstrated a new type of photonic biosensor that simultaneously utilizes a micro-capillary as a fluidic channel and as an optical ring resonator sensor. In addition to providing the high sensitivity typical of label-free sensors, our optofluidic ring resonator (OFRR) biosensor integrates the sample delivery mechanism with the sensing capability. Furthermore, this design has much higher sensor-surface-area to sample-volume ratio as compared to typical planar label-free photonic biosensors. In this seminar, applications of the OFRR in biosensing, including disease biomarker detection and circulating tumor cell detection, will be discussed.
