Patent ID: 8377717

Claim:
A method of preparing a site selectively tagged molecularly imprinted polymer for specifically detecting a target analyte molecule comprising the steps of: a) combining unpolymerized polymer components with one or more sacrificial spacer molecular template (SSMT) molecules, wherein each SSMT molecule has at least one more reactive group than is needed for target analyte recognition; b) allowing polymerization of the unpolymerized components thereby forming templated sites in the polymer, wherein each templated site is bonded to the SSMT molecule via a plurality of bonds; c) releasing the SSMT molecules from the templated sites thereby forming templated sites having a plurality of exposed reactive groups such that the number of the exposed reactive groups at each templated site is at least one more than is needed for target analyte recognition; d) effecting non-covalent binding of the target analyte molecule to the templated site having the plurality of exposed reactive groups, wherein at least one exposed reactive group at each templated site is left free; e) effecting covalent binding of a reporter molecule to the free at least one more exposed reactive group from d), wherein the reporter molecules in the polymer are exclusively present at the templated sites; and f) releasing the target analyte molecule thereby providing a site selectively tagged molecularly imprinted polymer, which can specifically detect the presence of the target analyte in a test sample.