Photothermal Recycling Biosensing for Continuous, Sensitive Molecular Quantification

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Analytical Chemistry
• Biosensing Technology

Background:

• Continuous biochemical sensing offers critical physiological and pathophysiological insights.
• Existing bioanalytical methods struggle with rapid, sensitive, and specific measurements in complex biological fluids.
• Reconciling slow kinetics for sensitivity with fast kinetics for rapid measurements is a key challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel sensing mechanism for overcoming limitations in continuous biochemical sensing.
• To enable rapid and sensitive molecular detection in complex biological fluids for frequent measurements.
• To develop a new bioanalytical paradigm for diverse applications.

Main Methods:

• Introduced photothermal recycling (PTR), a sensing mechanism inspired by polymerase chain reaction thermal cycling.
• Utilized plasmonic photothermal effects to rapidly recycle molecular binders.
• Developed a digital PTR assay for biochemical monitoring.

Main Results:

• Achieved multi-hour biochemical monitoring with subpicomolar (pM) sensitivity.
• Demonstrated assay performance in buffer, diluted serum, and saliva.
• Leveraged localized thermal energy to dynamically modulate biomolecular recognition.

Conclusions:

• Photothermal recycling (PTR) offers a new bioanalytical paradigm for continuous biochemical sensing.
• The digital PTR assay enables sensitive and frequent measurements in complex biological samples.
• This approach has broad applicability across various settings requiring real-time biochemical monitoring.