Photonic Crystal-Enhanced Quantum Dot Emission and its Application of Sensing Cancer-associated Exosomal miRNA

A major goal of healthcare is to understand the chemistry, biology, and engineering of cancer. This research will involve the early stage detection of cancer, when it is present at some of its lowest concentrations. As new forms of cancer are found, there is a call for personalized healthcare in medicine. To improve patient outcome and more efficiently monitor progression, it is imperative that cancer is detected early.This research aims to characterize and develop a photonic crystal-enhanced quantum dot detection assay that uses a liquid biopsy. We will be analyzing the binding affinity of the detection assay. Thermodynamic principles are embedded in the binding affinity of the assay components and we seek to exploit these principles to develop the specificity of the assay. In this study, the binding affinity is based on the association and dissociation constants, in addition to the presence of a mutation along the target miRNA strand.