Using a solid-phase molecular imprinting technique, high affinity nanoparticles (nanoMIPs) selective for the target antibiotics, ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin and ofloxacin have been synthesised. These have been applied in the development of a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor for the detection of the three antibiotics in both river water and milk. The particles produced demonstrated good uniformity with approximate sizes of 65.8 ± 1.8 nm, 76.3 ± 4.1 nm and 85.7 ± 2.5 nm, and were demonstrated to have affinities of 36.2 nM, 54.7 nM and 34.6 nM for the ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin and ofloxacin nanoMIPs, respectively. Cross reactivity studies highlighted good selectivity towards the target antibiotic compared with a non-target antibiotic. Using spiked milk and river water samples the nanoMIP-based SPR sensor offered comparable affinity with 66.8 nM, 33.4 nM and 55.0 nM (milk) and 39.3 nM, 26.1 nM and 42.7 nM (river water) for ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin and ofloxacin nanoMIPs respectively, to that seen within a buffer standard. Estimated LOD's for the three antibiotic targets in both milk and river water were low nM or below. The developed SPR sensor showed good potential for using the technology for the capture and detection of antibiotics from food and environmental samples.

Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) are a fairly new class of therapeutic compounds that act upon the androgen receptor. They proffer similar anabolic properties to steroids, but with a much-reduced...