Rapid Label-free Nanotechnological Immunoassay for Analysis of Candidate Malaria Vaccines

Abstract

We recently demonstrated a direct single-step label-free quantitative immunoassay in serum, investigating malaria vaccines [1]. Our method exhibits 1 pg mass sensitivity at concentrations of approx. 100pg/ml, on par with the goldstandard multi-step enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The nanomechanical assays perform faster and enable simultaneous mass uptake studies of multiple targets, due to epitope-specific recognition [1]. In nanomechanical assays parallel measurement points are represented over time (5s time resolution), thus providing additional temporal information compared with the ELISA output of averaged single end-point measurements. This commentary elucidates the additional advantages of label-free differential assays over the classical immunosorbent assay.