Liquid-in-liquid antibody confinement provides new possibilities for multiplexed diagnostics

The accuracy of disease diagnosis and prognosis can be improved by measuring the concentrations of multiple biomarkers from patient samples. One of the most common and robust methods for detecting biomarkers from patient samples is the ELISA. Recently, there has been a push to improve the disease detection capabilities of immunoassays such as ELISA, as well as other diagnostic assays, by implementing multiplexing strategies. This perspective discusses recent progress using a unique multiplexing technology that takes advantage of phase-separating polymers to spatially confine antibody reagents for cross-reaction-free multiplexing of immunoassays.