This paper provides an overview of the development and applications of plasmonics-active nanoprobes in biomedical diagnostics. Specific examples of detection techniques using surface-enhanced Raman scattering are presented to illustrate the usefulness and potential of the plasmonics nanoprobes for gene detection and nanobiosensing. The detection of specific target deoxyribonucleic acids sequences using a novel "molecular sentinel" nanoprobe method is presented and discussed in detail.
Keywords: Gene diagnostics; Raman; metallic nanostructures; nanoprobes; near-field detection; plasmonics; surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).