Dispositivo per il rilevamento di composti molecolari basato su risonanza plasmonica di superficie

In recent years, several approaches have been developed to carry out biosensors based on Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR). However, the high costs of nanostructures fabrications and absence of autonomous portable devices strongly limit the extensive use of LSPR biosensors outside the research laboratories. We designed, carry out and tested a novel low cost, multiparametric stand-alone LSPR imaging instrument for biosensing applications. This compact device (15 x 6 x 17 cm size and < 500g weight) consist on a nanohole array biochip integrated with a microfluidic layer and an elaboration system. An optical apparatus focuses a light beam from an IR LED source and a digital image sensor captures the reflected light from the biochip surface. The signals are processed by the embedded ARM processor and showed in a touchscreen display by a friendly end-user application, without the use of other external computational devices. Moreover, we propose an extremely simple analytical method to reduce image noise without any sophisticated temperature control or external luminosity change compensation. The device sensitivity of 6 x 10-5 Refractive Index Unit (RIU) was proved using glycerol solutions with different concentrations. We demonstrated the feasibility of our system in biomolecular detection, by monitoring the Ab-PTX3 antibody, as a test revealing instrument potentialities in detection of antibodies. The obtained results confirmed the potential usefulness of the proposed system in several biomedical applications such as medical diagnostic, immunoassays or fast mass screening without the aid of specialized laboratory or trained personnel