Semiconducting Polymer Dots for Multiplexed Assays

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fluorescence based techniques play an essential role in modern cell biology and biomedical research. Further development of these techniques has been hindered by the lack of suitable fluorescent probes. To overcome thischallenge, various fluorescent nanoparticles have been developed. Among those, conjugated polymer dots (Pdots) exhibited superior properties such as high brightness, fast emission rate, and excellent photostability. However, a severe drawback associated with Pdots is their broad emission spectra, which significantly limit their usefulness in practical applications. This proposal describes the refinement of a new class of Pdots that emit at different wavelengths with narrow spectral bandwidth. To achieve this goal, we propose the following aims: (1) Develop multicolor bright polymer dots with emission bandwidth FWHM that is comparable to or less than 40 nm. Here, we will carry out various spectroscopic techniques to characterize the Pdot properties such