Methods for isolation and viability assessment of biological organisms
AssigneeLawrence Livermore National Security, LLC
InventorsSonia Edith Letant, Sarah Elyse Baker, Tiziana Bond, Allan Shih-Ping Chang
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Abstract
Isolation of biological or chemical organisms can be accomplished using a surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) system. The SERS system can be a single or a stacked plurality of photonic crystal membranes with noble-metal lined through pores for flowing analyte potentially containing the biological or chemical organisms. The through pores can be adapted to trap individual biological or chemical organisms and emit SERS spectra, which can then be detected by a detector and further analyzed for viability of the biological or chemical organism.
Claims34
A method of assessing chemical or biological organisms comprising:
- providing a flow-through Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) platform, the flow-through SERS platform comprising a SERS substrate, the substrate having a surface coated with metal rings in correspondence of the entrances of through-pores;
- flowing analyte suspected of containing target organisms through the flow-through SERS platform;
- immobilizing the target organisms found in the analyte by individually attaching the target organisms to target specific anchors;
- producing a SERS spectrum for each individual immobilized target organism attached to the target specific anchors, by means of an optical light source arranged out-of-plane to the SERS substrate of the flow-through SERS platform, the optical light source facing the metal rings;
- detecting the SERS spectrum produced from each individual target organism;
- analyzing the SERS spectrum detected from each individual target organism;
- and
- assessing identity of the individual target organism by performing statistical analysis according to the SERS spectrum.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.