Patent ID: 8455207

Claim:
A method of detecting a presence or absence of a specific binding pair in a sample medium, said specific binding pair comprising a first member and a second member, said method comprising: generating a first Electrophoretic Quasi-elastic Light Scattering (EQELS) spectrum of said sample medium, said sample medium comprising said first member of said specific binding pair and wherein said first member comprises a biological particle; adding a specimen to said sample medium; generating a second EQELS spectrum of said sample medium after adding said specimen to said sample medium; comparing said first EQELS spectrum and said second EQELS spectrum; and determining a presence or absence of said second member of said specific binding pair in said sample medium from said comparison, wherein the method is carried out using a system comprising: an EQELS spectrometer comprising an EQELS controller, wherein the EQELS controller is configured to detect a first EQELS spectrum of the sample medium, wherein the sample medium comprises the first member of the specific binding pair, a sample modification system in communication with the EQELS controller and configured to add a specimen to the sample medium, wherein the EQELS controller is configured to detect a second EQELS spectrum of the sample medium from the EQELS spectrometer after the sample modification system adds the specimen to the sample medium, an EQELS analyzer in communication with the EQELS spectrometer, wherein the EQELS analyzer is configured to compare the first EQELS spectrum and the second EQELS spectrum and to detect the presence or absence of the second member of the specific binding pair in the sample medium from the comparison, and a reference database comprising a plurality of spectra, wherein the spectra comprise EQELS spectra for the biological particle in the absence of the second member of said specific binding pair, and EQELS spectra for the biological particle in the presence of the second member of said specific binding pair, wherein the comparison involves comparing the EQELS spectrum for the biological particle in the sample medium after the specimen is added to the sample medium with the plurality of spectra from the reference database and identifying the presence or absence of the binding pair in the sample medium from the comparison.