UNS: Non-Optical Detection of Biomolecular Binding Events at Electrical Liquid Interfaces

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

The requested funding is for instruments that will enable development of medical assays inexpensively and accurately. The approach is new and novel, and has the potential to reduce health care cost. This is a request for two pieces of instrument and equipment that will augment his on going research funded via CAREER. The PI's CAREER proposal was about developing an electrokinetic portable multiplexed biosensing system that would detect biomolecules at liquid-liquid interfaces. The plan is - to understand how biomolecular interactions influence the electrical response of a liquid interface; to understand how the physical characteristics of the liquid interface determine the biosensing specificity and sensitivity; and, to develop multiplexed biosensing capabilities and validate the liquid biosensors for disease biomarkers in practical samples. The core idea is to examine a biomolecular-binding event as a perturbing source interfacial polarization, which we can then be detect by measuring interfacial position. The requested instrument will enable the PI to quantify liquid interfacial position non-invasively in real-time The Broader Impact of the PI's CAREER is to engage awareness in high school students, and via Science Academy program in Baltimore City Middle schools as well as engage underrepresented students in his research lab.