Researchers from the Division of BioMolecular Analysis of the VU University Amsterdam together with colleagues from Wageningen University (WU) obtained a grant to develop enhanced bioresolution and miniaturization of Surface Plasmon Resonance optical sensing ‘SPRing’.

Jeroen Kool, Hubertus Irth and Wilfried Niessen (VU) and Michel Nielen and Teris van Beek (WU) have obtained a grant from the NWO Technology Areas for Sustainable Chemistry (TASC), Technology Area Comprehensive Analytical Science and Technology (TA COAST). The grant (~800.000 euro) allows 8 man-years of research by two PhD students and the purchase of tools and apparatus for development of the biosensors. The SPRing consortium also comprises six private partners (Heineken, RIKILT, Synthon, Technex, Europroxima and Waterproef) plus two associated international collaborators. This ensures that the analytical technologies developed will be applied in relevant application areas via researcher secondments and give rise to efficient valorization strategies.

Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR)-biosensors enable measuring of interactions between biomolecules in solution with other biomolecules immobilized on gold surfaces. With these biosensors, new drugs can be discovered and also food, feed, pharma ingredients and environmental samples can be screened for the presence of hazardous compounds. The whole SPR technology, however, needs to be overhauled as current devices have severe drawbacks ranging from sensitivity problems, bulky equipment, low sample throughput and/or because they can only measure one biological interaction at a time. Current day technologies now allow turning recent breakthroughs in nanoplasmonics, nanopatterning, optics, chip surface modification and hyphenation to analytical separations, to develop the next generation of analytical benchtop and handheld SPR biosensing devices. The biosensors that will be developed are miniaturized, multiplexed, have novel optics configurations and can rapid analyse food, pharma ingredients and environmental samples for unwanted compounds. Additionally on-line coupling to analytical separations for comprehensive mixture analysis is possible.