Point-of-care protein sensing platform based on immuno-like membrane with molecularly-aligned nanocavities

This paper presents the ability of the novel point-of-care protein sensing platform based on immune-like polymer membrane to separate and sense target analytes in human serum samples using the molecularly-aligned nanocavities. The separation performance of the developed membrane, which is substantially affected by surface chemistry and physics, can be enhanced by alignment of the template molecules. The developed biomimetic membrane with aligned molecular nanocavities can be synthesized and integrated with microfluidic biochips as point-of-care sensing platforms. The measurement results showed that the specific adhesion forces of the developed highly-aligned nanocavities on the immuno-like membranes are comparable to the interaction forces between CRP and biological CRP antibodies. The biomimetic polymer membrane works as antibody to catch specific proteins in complex biofluids within 110 s. The proposed approach is an adaptive technological platform because it facilitates cost-effective mass production and can be applied to a wide range of protein biomarkers.