@article{HildebrandtGeissler2012,
  author    = {Hildebrandt, Niko and Geissler, Daniel},
  title     = {Semiconductor quantum dots as FRET acceptors for multiplexed diagnostics and molecular ruler application},
  series = {Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology},
  volume    = {733},
  journal   = {Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology},
  editor    = {Zahavy, E and Ordentlich, A and Yitzhaki, S and Shafferman, A},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Dordrecht},
  isbn      = {978-94-007-2554-6},
  issn      = {0065-2598},
  doi       = {10.1007/978-94-007-2555-3_8},
  pages     = {75 -- 86},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {Applications based on Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) play an important role for the determination of concentrations and distances within nanometer-scale systems in vitro and in vivo in many fields of biotechnology. Semiconductor nanocrystals (Quantum dots - QDs) possess ideal properties for their application as FRET acceptors when the donors have long excited state lifetimes and when direct excitation of QDs can be efficiently suppressed. Therefore, luminescent terbium complexes (LTCs) with excited state lifetimes of more than 2 ms are ideal FRET donor candidates for QD-acceptors. This chapter will give a short overview of theoretical and practical background of FRET, QDs and LTCs, and present some recent applications of LTC-QD FRET pairs for multiplexed ultra-sensitive in vitro diagnostics and nanometer-resolution molecular distance measurements.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{MorgnerStuflerGeissleretal.2011,
  author    = {Morgner, Frank and Stufler, Stefan and Geissler, Daniel and Medintz, Igor L. and Algar, W. Russ and Susumu, Kimihiro and Stewart, Michael H. and Blanco-Canosa, Juan B. and Dawson, Philip E. and Hildebrandt, Niko},
  title     = {Terbium to quantum dot FRET Bioconjugates for clinical diagnostics influence of human plasma on optical and assembly properties},
  series = {Sensors},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Sensors},
  number    = {10},
  publisher = {MDPI},
  address   = {Basel},
  issn      = {1424-8220},
  doi       = {10.3390/s111009667},
  pages     = {9667 -- 9684},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from luminescent terbium complexes (LTC) as donors to semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) as acceptors allows extraordinary large FRET efficiencies due to the long Forster distances afforded. Moreover, time-gated detection permits an efficient suppression of autofluorescent background leading to sub-picomolar detection limits even within multiplexed detection formats. These characteristics make FRET-systems with LTC and QDs excellent candidates for clinical diagnostics. So far, such proofs of principle for highly sensitive multiplexed biosensing have only been performed under optimized buffer conditions and interactions between real-life clinical media such as human serum or plasma and LTC-QD-FRET-systems have not yet been taken into account. Here we present an extensive spectroscopic analysis of absorption, excitation and emission spectra along with the luminescence decay times of both the single components as well as the assembled FRET-systems in TRIS-buffer, TRIS-buffer with 2\% bovine serum albumin, and fresh human plasma. Moreover, we evaluated homogeneous LTC-QD FRET assays in QD conjugates assembled with either the well-known, specific biotin-streptavidin biological interaction or, alternatively, the metal-affinity coordination of histidine to zinc. In the case of conjugates assembled with biotin-streptavidin no significant interference with the optical and binding properties occurs whereas the histidine-zinc system appears to be affected by human plasma.},
  language  = {en}
}