Nomadics and Professor Timothy Swager have collaborated extensively on the development of Amplifying Fluorescent Polymer (AFP) sensing technologies. AFP's are fully conjugated polymers which link many fluorphores into what is in effect, a molecular wire. Once linked, the ensemble of fluorophores will respond to a transduction event at any individual fluorophore. As a result, each individual analyte interaction will produce an effect in a much larger ensemble of fluorphores, amplifying each sensing event. Nomadics capitalized on this effect to construct a handheld landmine detector, which can identify buried landmines by sensing the trace signature of TNT vapor emanating from a mine. This presentation will describe efforts of Nomadics and the Swager group to leverage the intrinsic amplification of AFP systems for bioanalyte detection.
