Technical note: A portable on-chip assay system for absorbance and plasmonic detection of protein hormone in milk.

This paper reports a portable device and method to extract and detect protein hormone in milk samples. Recombinant protein hormone spiked into milk samples was extracted by solid-phase extraction, and detection was carried out using the plasmonic property of gold nanoislands deposited on a glass substrate. Trace levels of hormone spiked in milk were analyzed by their optical absorbance property using a microfluidic chip. We built a portable assay system using disposable lab-on-chip devices. The proposed method is able to detect spiked recombinant protein hormone in milk at concentrations as low as 5ng/mL.