In today’s society, the need for more rapid, sensitive, specific and accurate new diagnosis methods for neurodegenerative disorders is critical due to the aging of the population.

The main objective of “NanedisSERS” is to develop a new and improved surface-enhanced Raman scattering SERS-based flexible nanoplatform for the noninvasive detection of neuro-markers at trace level concentrations.

We propose a joint use of zinc oxide (ZnO) and silver (Ag) materials to fabricate bioinspired, innovative 3D nanoplatforms using modern fabrication techniques. Nanoimprint Lithography (NIL) will be employed to fabricate periodic bioinspired nanopatterns on flexible and transparent substrates. The innovative 3D hierarchical SERS active substrate will consist in the deposition of ZnO and Ag thin films using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) and Magnetron Sputtering (MS) methods.

The originality of the proposal lies in (i) the joint exploitation of top-down (NIL) and bottom-up (PLD, MS) approaches with real time and ultrasensitive SERS detection to maximize the detection sensitivity, specificity and decrease overall cost, (ii) the bioinspired arrangement of high-density hotspots decorated with SERS active ZnO@Ag heterostructures and (iii) direct use as a simple and accessible tool of neurological biomarkers’ SERS detection.

The proposed SERS diagnosis platform could have a ground breaking impact and can arise as a viable complementary technological candidate to the traditional diagnostic tools.