Nanotechnology And Smartphones Enable Better Point Of Care Diagnostics For Kaposi’S Sarcoma Herpesvirus Dna

Abstract

In order to provide improved and more personalized medical care, better diagnosis and quantification of different biomarkers is necessary. During the tenure of my PhD I have created new systems for biodetection that exist at the interface of light and fluids, and that improve the sensitivity, scope, or some other aspect of the device. My first major research thrust was in the field of on-chip photonic resonators, where I increased the interaction between bioanalytes and light, enabling devices that were able to transduce up to a 40% increase in signal for a given amount of analyte. In my second work, I took an existing colorimetric gold nanoparticle reaction, multiplexed it for two targets using similar silver structures, and applied it to the differential diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma and Bacillary angiomatosis. My results indicate that the system created, without any optimization could detect DNA down to nanomolar levels, sufficient for use in the field. In my third, and penultimate piece of work, I created a smartphone based biosensor capable of quantifying the color change of my previous reaction, and extendable to many other systems, including colorimetric ELISAs. This sensor system is capable of detecting DNA from Kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus, determining how much is present and uploading results to a ii central server for later analysis. Taken together, over the course of my work I have created more sensitive and more multiplexed biosensors and shown how they can be connected to a smartphone for additional functionality. iii