Compact, microfluidic-based detection platform for on-the-flow analyte characterization

PARC has developed various key technologies which are essential for on-chip optical detection system. This talk will give a brief overview of these technologies and will then focus on our work in on-the-flow pathogen detection based on native fluorescence spectroscopy. This is a very promising approach that does not require specific binding or tagging of the analyte. However, the variety of cells is large compared to the number of basic molecular building blocks. Therefore, the fluorescence spectra of different species are often very similar, and sophisticated detection methods are required to reveal differences. The specificity of this approach can be further improved by implementing high spectral resolution and using multiple excitation wavelengths.