Welcome to the experts in Surface Plasmon Resonance

We aim to assist you on your way to absolute and high-quality results may they be in life sciences, biosensors or material sciences. Here we provide an executive summary about the MP-SPR technology, applications and products. More comprehensive information is available in our full website.

Applications of MP-SPR

Multi-Parametric Surface Plasmon Resonance (MP-SPR) is a real-time label-free surface sensitive technique that measures molecular interactions as well as structural changes and layer properties in both dry and wet state.

There are three major application areas of MP-SPR:

LIFE SCIENCES

Drug development (Drug formulation, Controlled drug release, Drug-cell interaction, Nanoparticle targeting, Uptake mechanisms)

Biophysics (Lipid interactions)

LIFE SCIENCES:
Why MP-SPR?

Unparalleled range: Optimize targeting from small molecule weight drugs up to nanoparticles and viruses
Beyond affinity: Evaluate affinity as well as kinetics of the molecular binding events to provide decision tools for further selection
Understanding: Understand better your molecules with kinetics and dynamic conformation change information from MP-SPR
PureKinetics™: Bulk effect measured in-line ensuring premium quality data even with small molecules, lipids or biomaterials.
Measurements from first selection of molecules up to uptake mechanisms: Quantify drug-material, drug-target, drug-lipid membranes and even drug-living cell monolayer interactions. Prove internalization label-free!
Optimize formulation: determine drug release kinetic from film
No oil, no costly prism sensors: MP-SPR Navi™ instruments utilize optical refractive index matching elastomer. Therefore, sensors are very easy to exchange and to further analyze with other methods such as microscopy.

BioNavis Ltd is the first one to introduce:

The only SPR to provide absolute measurement of interaction kinetics as well as layer structural changes.
First SPR instrument to distinguish trans- and para-cellular drug/nanoparticle transport on cell monolayer in real-time and label-free!
The first SPR with an in-line bulk effect measurement (PureKinetics™)

Life Science examples, Publications (in English)

BIOSENSORS

Assay development (Agriculture, Food and feed safety, Environmental, Clinical, Border and Process control).

Development of point-of-care biosensors (EC, SERS, ELISA, fluorescence, printed biosensors, nanoparticles)

BIOSENSORS:
Why MP-SPR?

No costly assay transfer: develop your sensor directly on your sensing material: metals for electrochemical (EC) and SPR detection, plastics for ELISA, cellulose for printed biosensors, metal nanoparticles for SERS, glass for classical chemistry, magnetic nanoparticles, bacteria, living cells and more
Any assay type: using direct binding, competitive assays, antibodies, fragments, DNA, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), aptamers, nanoparticles, cells
Any sample: Works with both gas and liquid samples, purified or crude, from small organic molecules up to metallic nanoparticles
Easy validation: In-situ MP-SPR with electrochemistry, fluorescence, or other optical detection methods. Ex-situ: Microscopy.
Beyond assay: Optimize also sample interaction with the disposable cartridge material to ensure binding only in the sensing area and not in the microfluidic channels.
Understanding: Not just measurements, but unparalleled understanding of your assay kinetics and structural changes.

BioNavis Ltd is the first one to introduce:

The only commercial SPR providing absolute measurement.
The widest range of sensing substrate materials in the market.
The first SPR with an in-line bulk effect measurement (PureKinetics™)
The first SPR to determine thickness and refractive index simultaneously (LayerSolver™)

Biosensors examples, Publications (in English)

MATERIAL SCIENCES

New materials and coatings (Antimicrobial, Antireflective surfaces, Filter membranes, Contact lenses, Implants, Graphene, Carbon nanotubes, Green materials, Plasmonic materials,..)

Process optimization of thin film manufacturing (Display technologies, Solar cells, Batteries etc.)

MATERIAL SCIENCES:
Why MP-SPR?

Material freedom: Characterize nanolayers of metals, ceramics, polymers, organic materials and even nanocellulose or graphene
Nanolayers from Å to µm: Measure and quantify materials from the single layer up to micron-thick multilayers
Nanoparticles: Optimize nanoparticles and their adsorption kinetics
LayerSolver™: Quantify both key parameters - thickness and refractive index - simultaneously
Separate the best from better: The most sensitive measurement for kinetics on surfaces – real-time kinetics of adsorption, swelling, release.
From dry to wet state with same configuration
Easy validation: In-situ MP-SPR with electrochemistry, fluorescence, or other. Ex-situ: Thanks to oil-free operation, same sample can be measured with AFM or other techniques. In-silico: Results can be confirmed also analytically.
In-situ and Ex-situ modification of sensors: Our wide range of substrates can be modified with almost any thin film deposition technique including self-assembly, Langmuir-Blodgett (LB), Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD), Evaporation, Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), Molecular imprinting, Spin coating, Dip coating and others.

BioNavis Ltd is the first one to introduce:

First commercial SPR for material sciences
The most sensitive instrument to study biochemical properties of functional coatings.
The only instrument to measure alternating nanolaminate thickness from 5Å, optical density and its barrier functionality.
The first SPR to determine thickness and refractive index simultaneously (LayerSolver™)

Material Sciences examples, Publications (in English)

About Multi-Parametric Surface Plasmon Resonance (MP-SPR)

Originally, surface plasmon resonance (traditional SPR) instruments have been developed for molecular interactions only. The technology has been used in biopharmaceutical development for more than 20 years with gold and dextran surfaces. We have pushed the limits of the technology to enable measurements on a number of other surfaces including polymers, graphene, nanoparticles and living cells.

More importantly, MP-SPR enables novel functions:

Measurements of molecular interactions with PureKinetics™
Measurements of layer properties with LayerSolver™

Measurements:

Layer properties

Molecular interactions

Refractive index

Thickness

Extinction coefficient

Density

Surface coverage

Swelling

Optical dispersion

Kinetics

Affinity

Concentration

Adsorption/Absorption

Desorption

Adhesion

Electrochemistry

Substrates:

MP-SPR expands substrates from traditional layers of gold, dextrans and other thin polymers to cellulose, PS, PET, PMMA, SiO2, TiO2, Al2O3, ITO, graphene, CNT, Pt, Pd and other.

MP-SPR is not limited to the thin films alone. Thanks to its angular scan mode, it is possible to measure even micron thick layers and interactions on them. This MP-SPR can also work with whole living cell monolayers.

Theory of MP-SPR

An incident beam of p-polarized light strikes an electrically conducting gold layer at the interface of a glass sensor with high RI (Refractive Index) and an external medium/sample with low RI. At a given angle, the excitation of surface plasmons takes place resulting in a reduced intensity of the reflected light, which can be seen as a dip in the SPR curve.

Traditional SPR (such as focused beam BIA analysis, SPREETA, imaging SPR) measures only peak minimum at a single wavelength limiting its functionality and applicability. MP-SPR acquires whole SPR curve at multiple wavelengths providing high quality measurements of surface interactions as well as layer properties and enabling PureKinetics™ and LayerSolver™.

More about theory:

How does MP-SPR work? MP-SPR angular scan, MP-SPR nanoparticle interactions, MP-SPR thickness measurements (English only)
How does MP-SPR compare with other techniques? Traditional SPR, ellipsometry, QCM (English only)
Further reading on SPR theory (English only)

Comparison of traditional SPR and MP-SPR

About MP-SPR Navi™ Instruments

The first instrument was installed in 2008 and is still in use. The MP-SPR technology was introduced first in 2011, which has enabled a tremendous jump in the capabilities of the instruments as compared to traditional SPR. Our instruments are used by academia and industry in more than 25 countries of the world including USA, Japan, China, Finland but also Turkey and Argentina. The newest generation of our instruments was released in 2015 introducing four main products of MP-SPR Navi™ family:

Previously, our products included also SPR Navi™ 200, 210A and 220A as well as KSV SPR 200.
All instruments are designed and manufactured in Finland.

Specifications of our products (English only)
How do our instruments work? See our videos (English only)

About BioNavis Ltd

We are the only manufacturer of MP-SPR instruments for studies of surface interactions and nanolayer characterization. We believe in:

Understanding rather than just measuring and that is why absolute results obtained with MP-SPR can be tracked down also analytically
Versatility rather than one-trick instruments and that is why our instruments can be used also in your future projects and those of your neighboring labs
Co-operation to advance science and translation of research results to industry

BioNavis Ltd is a privately held company based in Tampere, Finland.