Multiplexing potential of NIR resonant and non-resonant Raman reporters for bio-imaging applications.

Multiplexed imaging, which allows for the interrogation of multiple molecular features simultaneously, is vital for addressing numerous challenges across biomedicine. Optically unique surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanoparticles (NPs) have the potential to serve as a vehicle to achieve highly multiplexed imaging in a single acquisition, which is non-destructive, quantitative, and simple to execute. When using laser excitation at 785 nm, which allows for a lower background from biological tissues, near infrared (NIR) dyes can be used as Raman reporters to provide high Raman signal intensity due to the resonance effect.

Expanding the Multiplexing Capabilities of Raman Imaging to Reveal Highly Specific Molecular Expression and Enable Spatial Profiling.

Profiling the heterogeneous landscape of cell types and biomolecules is rapidly being adopted to address current imperative research questions. Precision medicine seeks advancements in molecular spatial profiling techniques with highly multiplexed imaging capabilities and subcellular resolution, which remains an extremely complex task. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) imaging offers promise through the utilization of nanoparticle-based contrast agents that exhibit narrow spectral features and molecular specificity.

A colorful approach towards developing new nano-based imaging contrast agents for improved cancer detection.

Providing physicians with new imaging agents to help detect cancer with better sensitivity and specificity has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes. Development of new imaging agents could offer improved early cancer detection during routine screening or help surgeons identify tumor margins for surgical resection. In this study, we evaluate the optical properties of a colorful class of dyes and pigments that humans routinely encounter.

Enabling Flow-Based Kinetic Off-Rate Selections Using a Microfluidic Enrichment Device.

Modern genomic sequencing efforts are identifying potential diagnostic and therapeutic targets more rapidly than existing methods can generate the peptide- and protein-based ligands required to study them. To address this problem, we have developed a microfluidic enrichment device (MFED) enabling kinetic off-rate selection without the use of exogenous competitor. We tuned the conditions of the device (bed volume, flow rate, immobilized target) such that modest, readily achievable changes in flow rates favor formation or dissociation of target-ligand complexes based on affinity.

Spectrophotometry in modular microfluidic architectures.

Assays for chemical biomarkers are a vital component in the ecosystem of noninvasive disease state assessment, many of which rely on quantification by colorimetric reactions or spectrophotometry. While modern advances in microfluidic technology have enabled such classes of devices to be employed in medical applications, the challenge has persisted in adapting the necessary tooling and equipment to integrate spectrophotometry into a microfluidic workflow. Spectrophotometric measurements are common in biomarker assays because of straightforward acquisition, ease of developing the assay's mechanism of action, and ease of tuning sensitivity.