The Biacore Molecular Interaction Service (BMISR) is located in Research Building room E312 provides customized biomolecular analysis services to Georgetown University faculty and staff. The two Biacore machines in our facility utilize the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) technology to study biomolecular binding events on a chip surface. The basic principle involves immobilization of a ligand on a sensor chip followed by delivery of an analyte by a microfluidic system. Any protein, DNA, RNA, lipid, carbohydrate, polysaccharide, cell, virus, drug, drug like molecule (organic or inorganic) can be used as the ligand or analyte. Since the detection system is based on measuring total mass on the sensor chip surface neither ligand nor analyte has to be tagged. In addition to identifying binding partners to a target molecule, SPR also provides quantitative data on:

Specificity: How specific is the binding between two molecules?
Concentration: How much of a given molecule is present and active?
Kinetics: What is the rate of association and dissociation?
Affinity: How strong is the binding?