Principal Investigator Scott Manalis
Project Website http://www.media.mit.edu/nanoscale/detection.html
Since the ratio of surface area to volume of the suspended microchannel resonator (SMR) is very large, surface adsorption is an effective mechanism for biomolecular mass sensing. The exact mass of an absorbed layer can be quantified by measuring the difference in resonance frequency before, during (i.e, in real time) and after each injection. Appropriate surface functionalization is crucial for biomolecular recognition with high specificity and sensitivity, and we are currently evaluating various chemistries that are compatible with a silicon oxide surface.
The SMR can resolve absorbed mass with a resolution of 0.01 ng/cm2 which is comparable to the commercial Surface Plasmon Resonance sensor. We envision that this resolution could be readily improved by 10-fold and thereby provide a sensitive means for measuring the binding kinetics of small molecules.