Summary:

All over the world, billions of dollars are spent annually on chemical/biological detections related to medical diagnosis, environmental monitoring and food safety because lab analysis using expensive equipment is usually cumbersome and time-consuming. Therefore, there has been a pressing societal need for the development of chemo/biosensors for the detection of various target analytes (biomarkers), which are less expensive, simpler to construct and operate, and may offer the choice of portability. Highly specific targeting and sensitive detection of low abundance protein biomarkers, especially those monitored in non-invasive biological samples (tears, sweat, urine), are of utmost importance in supporting early diagnosis and prognosis of diseases, and assessing fast and personalized therapeutic response. Recent developments of novel chemosensory materials and fabrication technologies provide many potential opportunities for the development of a new generation of chemo/biosensors based on novel sensing concepts, by combining the unique binding selectivity offered by molecularly imprinted polymers and the benefits of metallic nanostructures as Raman enhancers undergoing self-orientation at an immiscible liquid interface for additional signal boost. Understanding how composite nanostructures (MIP-shell type gold nanorods) affect LSPR properties, tuning their binding properties for tailored SERS detection selectivity and sensitivity, study their interaction with a protein biomarker (thrombin) by using fingerprint type vibrational spectra, correlate experimental findings with computational chemistry data, promote innovative analytical assemblies (interfacial liquid state SERS) prone to portability, and last but not least, validate their performances in some of the most pressing biomedical applications (fast and non-invasive screening of diseases based on trace levels of protein biomarkers) are important issues to address and milestones to reach in the current project.