Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering Detection of Cancer Biomarkers with Bifunctional Nanocomposite Probes

This report describes new findings of an investigation of a bifunctional nanocomposite probe for the detection of cancer biomarkers, demonstrating the viability of magnetic focusing and SERS detection in a microfluidic platform. The nanocomposite probe consists of a magnetic nickel-iron core and a gold shell. Upon bioconjugation, the nanoprobes are magnetically focused on a specific spot in a microfluidic channel, enabling an enrichment of "hot spots" for surface enhanced Raman scattering detection of the targeted carcinoembryonic antigen. The detection sensitivity, with a limit of detection of ∼0.1 pM, is shown to scale with the magnetic focusing time and the nanoparticle size. The latter is also shown to exhibit an excellent agreement between the experimental data and the theoretical simulation. Implications of the findings to the development of rapid and sensitive microfluidic detection of cancer biomarkers are also discussed.