Self-concentrating buoyant glass microbubbles for high sensitivity immunoassays

Here, we report the novel application of a material with self-concentrating properties for enhancing the sensitivity of immunoassays. Termed as glass microbubbles, they are antibody functionalized buoyant hollow glass microspheres that simultaneously float and concentrate into a dense monolayer when dispensed in a liquid droplet. This self-concentrating charactaristic of the microbubbles allow for autonomous signal localization, which translates to a higher sensitivity compared to other microparticle-based immunoassays. We then demonstrated a “microbubble array” platform consisting of the glass microbubbles floating in a microfluidic liquid hemisphere array for performing multiplex immunoassays.