The central objective of the project is to develop an experimental demonstrator to provide a clear proof of concept for a new analytical device able to offer pertinent solutions to the three most unmet medical needs in diagnostics: (1) high sensitivity, (2) high specificity and (3) label-free detection of disease biomarkers. Specifically, a novel biosensing approach will be demonstrated by integrating a plasmonic nanoplatform with aptamers as high affinity biorecognition elements.