Faster and More Accurate Lab-on-a-Chip Promises Early Cancer Diagnosis

An award-winning researcher from Vanderbilt University used plasmonia to develop a new type of nanotivators capable of rapidly trapping and detecting molecules, viruses, and DNA – a transformative device for medicine that also has color printing applications.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Justus Ndukaife and his colleagues at Purdue University have drilled holes in a gold film smaller than the wavelength of light. Squeezing light into such small volumes is possible thanks to surface plasmon resonance, a phenomenon that traps molecules near the film, making them available for study under powerful microscopes.

The result is what is commonly called a lab on a chip – a new way to detect and diagnose cancer, viruses or other diseases.

Ndukaife nanotubes require less laser power, have more potential for trapping and stabilizing molecules, and allow higher resolution than previous versions.

He said that they also have the potential to use broadband lightwave light source to bademble nanoparticles of gold and silicon, which could have Applications for permanent color printing, without fading.

in the journal ACS Nano . The work was made possible by DMR-1120923 from the National Science Foundation.

Ndukaife, who won the 2017 Chorafas Foundation Physics Award for his work on nanotubes, was recently selected for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program. He will work with the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in the development and testing of a lab-on-a-chip device for the isolation and concentration of E. coli bacteria

The Ndukaife's project is part of a broader initiative that will involve 55 CADFPs. researchers with one of the 43 higher education institutions and collaborators in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda to work together on curriculum co-development, research , higher education and training.

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More information:
Justus C. Ndukaife et al. High resolution large-size nanoparticle trapping with multifunctional nanohole thermoploplasmonic metasurface, ACS Nano (2018). DOI: 10.1021 / acsnano.8b00318