Hydrogels for Biosensor Applications

• Antragstellerin: Dr. Ilke Anac
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Präparative und Physikalische Chemie von Polymeren
• Förderung: Förderung von 2007 bis 2012
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 54842844

Biosensors are one of the most reliable analytical tools in biomedicine, biology, and environmental control. In current biosensors, different kinds of sensing media are used such as binary self assembled monolayers or polymer brushes. The aim of this project is to investigate the possibility to utilize the stimulus-induced collapse in ligand modified arcylamide and poly (vinyl alcohol) hydrogels for target enrichment and thus a sensitivity increase at a (metal) surface. The binding process will be read out by surface plasmon spectroscopy (SPR) and waveguide mode spectroscopy (WaSM). Two kinds of synthetic strategies will be used to synthesize arcylamide hydrogels. Poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels will be prepared by repeatedly freezing and thawing cycles. After the hydrogel preparation, surface plasmon fluorescence spectroscopy (SPFS)-based sandwich immunoassay will be used for the detection of a particularly important analyte molecule, the free prostate-specific antigen (f-PSA). A monoclonal antibody pair will be used to establish a sandwich essay format. The strategy involves two distinct antibodies against different epitopes of the f-PSA, for capturing and detecting purposes, respectively. The capture antibody will be immobilized on the hydrogel. Then, the surface will be exposed to the artificially prepared analyte solutions and the fluorophore-labeled detection antibody will detect the amount of captured antibody indirectly.

• DFG-Verfahren: Forschungsstipendien
• Gastgeber: Professor Dr. Kurt Kremer