This project involves the development of ultra-bright Nanoparticles (NPs) for the detection of biomolecules. The accurate and sensitive detection of nucleic acids and proteins is essential to assess the state of the body and/or disease progression, the presence of pathogens in the body, as well as in the environment and food.

The concentration of many important biomarkers is often lower than the detection capacity of traditional methods (e. g. ELISA). The detection limit below those obtained by conventional approaches for protein analytes requires the development of new techniques and is based on the use of sophisticated equipment.

On the other hand, nucleic acid detection using amplification reactions is very sensitive, but requires intensive sample preparation and is costly.

The objective of the project is to design nanoparticles with very high brightness and use them for the detection of proteins and nucleic acids in proof-of-concept experiments to demonstrate the superiority (simplicity, price, detection threshold) of nanoparticles over methods currently used for the detection of analytes in biological samples.