Abstract: An apparatus for measuring light in samples using a high intensity light source, is presented. The system utilizes bifurcated fiber bundles to transmit light at the excitation and emission wavelength bands. It also uses a band-pass filter for eliminating extraneous light, including that which corresponds to the excitation wavelength range, while permitting the emitted light to pass to a detector for quantitation. The system employs a shutter to shield the detector while the laser light source is activated, and a controller to intermittently activate the laser light and close the shutter. The apparatus preferably includes lenses for better illumination and read out conditions. The apparatus is employed in Luminescence Oxygen Channeling Immunoassays. The method has high sensitivity, accuracy and precision, and the apparatus is highly compact. Accordingly, the analyzer can perform assays in nanoliter to microliter sample volumes in standard microplates having at least 96, 384 or 1536 wells.

Abstract: The invention relates to a planar ATR and evanescently exited luminescence optical sensor platform, consisting of a transducer and a recognition layer, wherein changes in the effective refractive index of the recognition layer are converted into a measurable variable in accordance with the integrated-optical light pointer principle. The invention relates also to the use of the method and to the method itself using the sensor platform, for example in label-free biosensory analysis.

Abstract: This document describes an optical sensor unit and a procedure for the specific detection and identification of biomolecules at high sensitivity in real fluids and tissue homogenates. High detection limits are reached by the combination of i) label-free integrated optical detection of molecular interactions, ii) the use of specific bioconstituents for sensitive detection and iii) planar optical transducer surfaces appropriately engineered for suppression of non-specific binding, internal referencing and calibration. Applications include the detection of prion proteins and identification of those biomolecules which non-covalently interact with surface immobilized prion proteins and are intrinsically involved in the cause of prion related disease.