In our daily life, we are exposed to multiple health threatens, such as pathogens (viruses, bacteria, fungus, etc.) and hazardous chemicals (dioxins, lead, mercury, bioactive amines, etc.). These entities/substances can be present nearly anywhere due to many different reasons, such as environmental pollution, seasonal viruses or even biological/chemical warfare, etc. Their uncontrolled spread may trigger tremendous crisis which may rapidly affect our day-to-day life, businesses and even disrupt the world trade and movements. It is widely recognized that taking fast and effective actions to any crisis is of paramount importance to prevent its escalation and thus, reducing greatly its impact. For this to happen, it is crucial to have rapid access to reliable and relevant data which provides a thorough picture of the problem. In terms of human health crisis caused by hazardous substances, it means to have rapid access to reliable identification, i.e. with high specificity, sensitivity and multiple quantification of the threatening entities/substances.
As crucial as it is having a solution that allows rapidly detecting multiple analytes on a massive scale, it also is ensuring the availability of that solution. Recent crisis, as COVID-19 pandemia, has shown that technological sovereignty is particularly important in the case of health threatens and there is an urgent need to develop next generation multi-sensing photonic and electronic systems for health threatening sensing Made in Europe.
PHOTONGATE aims at developing a sensing solution adaptable to the target analytes of interest. PHOTONGATE will allow to quantify multiple analytes of the same or different nature (biomolecules, chemicals, metals, bacteria, etc.) in a single test with lower time to response than currently lab systems and with easier operation not requiring of high-skilled personnel. PHOTONGATE is based on the combination of two core technologies. On the one hand, a bio-chemical technology (molecular gates) integrated with nanostructured systems, which will confer the specificity to the system and will allow an increased sensitivity (bio-recognition amplification system). And, on the other hand, a photonic technology (light interaction with Local Surface Plasmonic Resonance (LSPR) structures) working as transducers and allowing the quantification.
