1 HIGHLY SENSITIVE, RAPID, RELIABLE, AND AUTOMATIC CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE DIAGNOSIS WITH NANOPARTICLE FLUORESCENCE ENHANCER AND MEMS Bin Hong, a Junhai Kai, b Yongjie Ren, a Jungyoup Han, b Zhiwei Zou, b Chong H. Ahn, b and Kyung A. Kang a 1. INTRODUCTION Cardiovascular diseases, especially acute myocardial infarction (MI; heart attack), have been the leading threat to human life. 1 Thus, in the emergency situation, a rapid and accurate diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases is important to save lives. It can be realized by rapidly and sensitively measuring cardiac markers that are released from injured cardiac muscles. Creatine Kinase-MB (CK-MB), myoglobin (MG), and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) are important markers for early diagnosis of heart attack. 2 B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and C-reactive protein (CRP) are crucial markers for diagnosis and prognosis of congestive heart failure (CHF) and acute coronary syndromes (ACS), respectively. 3-4 Our effort is focused on developing highly sensitive, accurate, and reliable instrument using nanoparticle reagents and Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMs). The main challenge in developing biosensor is the low concentrations of cardiac markers in plasma (only a few tens pico-moles) at an early stage of cardiovascular diseases. 5 Since our sensing is interrogated by fluorescence, fluorescence enhancement can, therefore, improve the sensitivity. N anog old p articles (NGPs) hold strong plasmon polariton field on their surface, which can couple the lone-pair electrons (normally used for self-quenching) of the fluorophore for fluorescence enhancement. 6-7 Some a Bin Hong, Yongjie Ren, and Kyung A. Kang, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292. b Junhai Kai, Jungyoup Han, Zhiwei Zou, and Chong H. Ahn, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221.