Defense: Bioassay Development for Molecular Diagnostics on an Optofluidic Platform

Abstract: Efficient “Lab-on-a-Chip” devices can rapidly analyze small volumes of clinically relevant chemical or biological samples, which make them ideal candidates for portable “Point-of-Care” diagnostic tools. There have been a number of well-fabricated devices which employ integrated photonic principles for biosensing, bioanalysis, and other applications. This union of optics and microfluidics is referred to as Optofluidics. Our lab has constructed a biophotonic analysis platform based on Anti-resonant Reflecting Optical Waveguides (ARROWs) which are waveguides designed to propagate light through a low-refractive index core. These devices are comprised of orthogonally intersecting liquid-core and solid-core light carrying ARROWs for planar fluorescence excitation and detection of single biomolecules in flow.

My work is centered on designing diagnostic assays for multiple types of biomolecules in flow, such as whole influenza viruses, total RNA from viruses, and viral antigens. I will explore all of the assays implemented in detection experiments, culminating in introducing a single antigen assay for detecting viral protein antigens. I have used this single antigen assay to perform specific, differentiated diagnostics of Influenza A and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) protein antigens on the ARROW optofluidic platform from clinical nasopharyngeal swabs at clinically relevant concentrations.