We have developed a fundamentally new method for the detection of toxicants in complex environments: using the toxicants directly as energy donors in macrocycle-promoted, non-covalent energy transfer. This energy transfer occurs with exceptional efficiency for a broad range of toxicants in complex biological and environmental media. This generally applicable phenomenon has been used in the development of array-based detection schemes, which can detect multiple classes of small-molecule toxicants with exceptionally high sensitivity and selectivity. It has also been used as part of multifunctional systems for the extraction and detection of toxicants found in oil spills. It can be used to address a critical knowledge gap in current detection methods: often times, the high sensitivity of current detection methods means that researchers can only detect compounds if they know precisely what to look for. Using fluorescence energy transfer as the basis for detection provides the ability to screen for broad classes of compounds, without requiring prior knowledge of the particular analytes of interest.

Macrocycle-promoted energy transfer for broad-based toxicant detection

248th National Meeting (2014)

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