BILOBA Objectives

The point-of-care platform proposed in the present project aims to overtake the limitations of the state of the art SPR sensing platforms based on the SPR technology. The proponents believe that such target result can be reached by exploiting and integrating some proof-of-concept achievements already obtained by the proponents. In particular at the end of the project the proponents aim to:

• Integrate on a single biochip platform the label-free detection based on the BSW resonance shift, and the enhanced spectral analysis of fluorescence emitted by biomolecules immobilised on the surface, with field enhancement factor for improving fluorescence intensity of at least 5000;

• Design and fabricate biochips with increased sensitivity (at least 30 RIU-1 in the amplitude sensing mode) and resolution (at least 5•10-8 RIU in terms of change of the external medium bulk refractrive index);

• Develop surface functionalisation techniques allowing to obtain biochips which are selective for specific cancer biomarkers (demonstrate selectivity to VEGF-A, Angiopoietin -1 and -2);

• Design and fabricate a user-friendly analytical instrument to be used in pre-clinical validation tests;

• Validate the performance of the point-of-care platform for the detection of specific cancer biomarkers at a pre-clinical stage, with a resolution of at least 10ng/mL for the label-free operation and 0.1ng/mL for the fluorescence operation.