Workshop
APC Biomedical Optical Sensors - Differentiators for Winning Technologies
Sunday, 12 June 2011
14:00-18:00
APC Workshop Schedule and Speaker Abstracts
Biosensors have found applications in ever more diverse areas - and the market is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Currently the bulk of revenue flows from the point-of-care medical diagnostics market. With the development of newer biosensors, this situation is likely to change with newer application research. Progress in biosensors has mainly been due to a combination of improvements in the biological components and the implementation of microsystem technologies.
In the photonics community, there has been an explosion of research activity in recent years. Different types of sensors based on fibers, planar waveguides and nanoparticles have been proposed and demonstrated. Silica, silicon and metals are some of the material systems used. Sensitivity continues to improve, and single molecular detection has been reported. However, the transport of target molecules to the sensing surface still largely relies on diffusion or, at best, fluid flow. Specimen preparation and pre-concentration remain serious challenges.
There has also been a tremendous amount of development in microfluidics and optofluidics. These methods not only help to reduce the amount of analyte consumed, but also lead to on-chip manipulation and unprecedented control of biological specimens. Can they also play a significant role in target pre-concentration and delivery?
Even though point-of-care diagnosis is envisioned as the ultimate application for much of this research effort, some methods and results may still remain as only a laboratory curiosity. Are there already too many types of biosensor? Which applications are the best implementations of different sensors? What are the key issues that must be resolved? What is required to bring today’s research to tomorrow’s point-of-care diagnostic instruments? In this workshop, experts will highlight developments in pertinent fields - and a panel discussion will tackle the question: ‘what are the key differentiators for winning biosensor technologies?’
Sunday June 12, 2011
Session I (2:00 – 3:30)
2:00 - 2:10 Opening remarks
Richard De La Rue, Danxia Xu, Ishwar Aggarwal, Mário Ferreira
2:10 – 2:20
Photonic biosensor chips for label-free detection, Martin Kristensen, Univ. of Aarhus, Denmark.
Optical fibers are ideal for transmission of light due to their low loss. This is less important for optical sensors where chemical compatibility, size and price are more important. These parameters can be optimized by using planar integrated optics and fabrication methods from the semiconductor industry with adaptations to satisfy the requirements of biosensors.
2:20 – 2:30
Photonic crystal biomedical sensors”, Richard De La Rue, Univ. of Malaya and University of Glasgow
This presentation will be primarily concerned with the approach being researched and developed in the European Community funded project P3SENS (Polymer Photonic multiparametric biochemical SENSor for Point of Care diagnostics). Using a version of photonic crystal microcavity resonators in the sensor element, the target is to exploit an all-polymer approach for construction of a reliable, cheap and mass-producible biomedical sensor platform.
2:30 – 2:40
Plasmonic metamaterials for sensing, Anatoly Zayats, King’s College London, UK.
We will describe a new approach to refractive index sensing based on plasmonic nanorod metamaterials. Using unique optical properties of metamaterials determined by interaction between nanorod in the assembly, the approach offers orders-of-magnitude improvement in sensitivity, accompanied by unique metamaterials possiblitity to tailor the optical properties of the sensor to particular applications.
2:40 – 2:50
Optofluidic biosensing, Ian White, Univ. of Maryland, USA.
Despite reports of thousands of new biosensors during the last decade, little has changed for molecular analysis and diagnostics applications. This trend may indicate that instead of smaller devices and new transductions, a systems approach that reduces complexity and enables new applications is necessary. Optofluidics - the synergistic combination of microfluidics and photonics - may represent the integration that finally changes the way that molecular analysis is conducted.
2:50 – 3:00
Planar optofluidics in biosensing applications, Holger Schmidt, Univ. of California at Santa Cruz, USA
I will give an overview of optofluidic approaches to biosensing. I will focus on architectures that combine planar integrated optics and microfluidics, and discuss the current state of the art and obstacles to creating optimized, chip-scale biosensing systems.
3:00 – 3:30
Panel discussion
3:30 – 4:00
Coffee break
Session II (4:00 – 5:40)
4:00 – 4:10
Biosensing using plasmonic waveguides, Pierre Berini, Univ. of Ottawa, Canada:
Biosensors based on surface plasmon waveguide structures are discussed. Particular emphasis is
placed on long-range surface plasmon waveguides and their use in various transducer architectures for amplitude or phase sensitive sensors. Performance projections and sensing results are given in support of the approaches presented. The main points of differentiation relative to other optical approaches are emphasized.
4:10 – 4:20
Sensors based on optical fibre microwires and related resonators, Gilberto Brambilla, Univ. of Southampton, UK.
Optical fibre microwires and nanowires have been proposed for a variety of bio- and chemical sensors ranging from in-situ intracellular monitoring to microfluidics.
4:20 – 4:30
Silicon photonic wire biochips, DanXia Xu, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
Demands for optical interconnects have spurred dramatic progress in silicon photonics, enabling the development of many building blocks. Here a silicon photonic wire label-free sensor system is described. Arguments will be presented on why silicon is also the platform of choice for biomolecular sensing, and on what we can benefit from the momentum of interconnects research.
4:30 – 4:40
Perspectives on the use of optical forces for on-chip particle delivery and sensing, Kishan Dholakia, St. Andrews Univ., UK.
4:40 – 5:40
Panel discussion
