Title:  On Chip Label-free Biomolecular Capturing and Detection using Integrated Optical Microresonators

Committee: 

Dr. Adibi, Advisor

Dr. Klein, Chair

Dr. Chang

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research work is to develop a compact lab-on-a-chip (LOC) sensor for post translational modification (PTM) profiling of the proteins used as a biomarkers, for early cancer detection. The proposed LOC sensor comprises of on-chip pre-concentration and filtering device to isolate the targeted low-abundance proteins form the complex input sample, and an integrated photonic sensor microarray for profiling the molecular structures of the isolated protein epitopes. The motivation of this work has been extracted from the lack of ability of conventional affinity-based pre-concentration and separation techniques for elucidating PTMs of the proteins. The multi-disciplinary research has been focused towards the integration of functional proteomics, microfluidics, and nanofabrication, employing principles of theoretical modeling and simulations, microfluidics, surface chemistry, and nano-optics for the realization of a novel integrated LOC platform for pre-concentration, filtration, and label-free detection of proteins and biomarkers.