BINDUNGSASSAY UNTER VERWENDUNG OPTISCHER RESONANZ KOLLOIDALER TEILCHEN

A device and a method enable the rapid, quantitative evaluation of a large collection of ligands for binding affinity with a certain immobilized receptor, the improvements being that binding pan be detected without the need for a label and that binding is carried out in solution phase at a high rate. The instrument has at least two embodiments, one is based on a sensitive absorption photometer and the other on a sensitive light scatter photometer operating at a specific resonance wavelength, lambda R, of small, metallic, colloidal particles. The resonance is present in small particles having a complex refractive index with real part n( lambda ) approaching 0 and imaginary part k( lambda ) approaching 2ROOT 2 simultaneously at a specific wavelength lambda R. The particles are substantially spherical and substantially smaller than lambda R. The receptor is immobilized on a suspension of such particles and ligand binding is detected by a change in optical absorption or light scatter at the resonance wavelength.