In December 2005, the firm was acquired by UK company Oxonica (AIM:OXN), a developer of nanoparticle technology. Nanoplex is focused to preparing tailored metal nanoparticles and nanoparticle-based surfaces exhibiting desirable physical, chemical, and optical properties. Building on earlier work to develop economy-of-scale and quality-ensuring fabrication processes, Nanoplex is now creating metal nanoparticle-based products that address unmet needs in a variety of application areas, including life sciences, security, environmental analysis, and process monitoring: 1. Biological Multiplexing Nanoplex's Nanobarcodes⢠particles technology comprises a solution array of encoded particles for multiplexing of biological assays that offer significant performance and ease-of-use advantages relative to existing approaches. Because (i) there are an extremely large number of unique codes, (ii) the particles can be read out using conventional optical microscopes, and (iii) their surfaces can be functionalized with a wide variety of capture chemistries, Nanobarcodes particles offer a flexible and affordable approach to multiplexing. Nanoplex has also developed a series of nanoparticulate Raman tags for biomolecule quantitation. Based on surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), the tags offer two significant advantages relative to molecular or particulate fluorophores: increased multiplexing power (the width of a Raman peak is 1/50 that of fluorescence) and improved photostability (no photodegradation or photobleaching). Finally, Nanoplex's colloidal Au-amplified imaging Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) technology has demonstrated exceptional increases in sensitivity relative to conventional SPR for detection of protein-protein and DNA-DNA interactions, and is a powerful tool for HTS screening of ligand libraries against protein targets. 2. Ultrasensitive Molecular ID Nanoplex's self-assembled metal surfaces technology provides a route to fabrication of highly reproducible, strongly enhancing substrates for SERS. Leveraging the existence of portable, real-time instrumentation, SERS promises to be a powerful tool for detecting and identifying trace quantities of small, organic molecules in water and air for applications ranging from detection of environmental pollutants to improving airport security. 3. Tagging and Auto ID The Nanobarcodes particles technology also holds great promise in non-biological applications, especially for robust, uniquely identifiable nanoscale tagging of small items for authentication or tracking. The technology will allow tagging of items previously not practical to tag with conventional barcodes, as well as aiding in the development of new Auto-ID technologies. Silica Encapsulated Nanoparticles for Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SENSER) tag
