Abstract

Nanoplasmonic Platforms for COVID-19 Vaccine Development

Amy Shen, Provost, Professor, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

The recent emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants require swift actions in identifying specific antigens and optimizing vaccine development to maximize the humoral response of the patient. Specifically, measuring the specificity and the amount of antibody produced by the host immune system with high throughput and accuracy is crucial to develop timely diagnostics and therapeutic strategies. Motivated by finding an easy-to-use and cost-effective alternative to existing serological methodologies, an optomicrofluidic sensing platform is developed to rapidly detect antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in diluted human plasma within 30 minutes, at the limit of detection of 0.5 pM (0.08 ng/mL). The sensing principle is based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) involving gold nanospikes (fabricated by electrodeposition) in a microfluidic device, coupled with an optical probe. Extending this work, a nanoplasmonic multiplex optical biosensor to capture the humoral response in serums against Spike from SARS-CoV-2 and two hemagglutinins (HAs) from influenza viruses is established recently. This multiplex assay demonstrates multiple serum antibody profiling by using immunized mice, validated by the ELISA. Our nanofabrication and surface patterning techniques, combined with biotin tag-based protein functionalization method, can be utilized to establish high throughput screening platform for the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development and beyond.