Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Over the last two decades, Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) has become a leading technology for real-time and label-free study of biomolecular binding events. Whereas this approach is successful in detecting interactions between rather large molecules, current SPR-based devices are however limited when applied to the detection of small molecular weight compounds, which is crucial for pharmaceutical companies involved in drug discovery. Indeed, the characterization of the interactions between drug candidates and their target is extremely important during the stages of drug screening when hundreds of potential lead compounds must be tested. This strategic project is thus aimed at the development of SPR-based detection systems with significantly improved sensitivity to achieve this goal. Whereas all commercially available SPR systems use light intensity as the information source for interaction monitoring, we have shown that, under SPR, the phase of polarized light gives much more sensitive response than its intensity characteristics. We have developed SPR Interferometry and Phase-Polarization contrast methods to improve the performance of SPR-based sensing and imaging schemes. This grant application focuses on further improvements of phase-polarization methodologies, e.g., the use of novel nanophotonics and waveguide-based architectures to be applied to the detection of small drugs and biomolecules. Our ultimate goal is to provide the biochemical, biomedical and pharmaceutical community with the tools to detect any biomolecular interaction of interest. This high-added value technology development will be performed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from École Polytechnique and from two industrial partners (ProScan Rx Pharma Inc. and Coractive).