Early diagnosis can alleviate the suffering and lower mortality rates from degenerative diseases such as cancer, enable treatment before destructive structural changes occur for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 virus. Detection of blood-based biomarkers via liquid biopsy is time- and cost-efficient and a relatively non-invasive diagnostic technology offering increased patient accessibility. The simplest and most common technique is ELISA, a powerful tool for the detection of biomarkers. However, ELISA requires multiple steps of sample treatments that are time- and labor-consuming, and its detection limit is only ~picogram/mL when it must be attogram/mL to detect the trace amount of biomarkers in the blood released from tumors less than 1 mm, for example. This low sensitivity often yields inconsistent results even with only minor variations in protein expression or experimental protocol.

PLUS Lab develops new platforms that overcome these limitations using chiral nanostructures. This project will make tremendous impact not only in early disease diagnostics but also in numerous other bio-related research including metabolism, immunology, and pharmaceutics. By watching processes that have been invisible, this project will initiate new biochemistry and create Big Data.