Dr. Melik Demirel, Associate Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics, was highlighted on the cover of August 15 Applied Physics Letters publication. Demirel, along with three other collaborators demonstrated a biosensing approach which, for the first time, combines the high sensitivity of whispering gallery modes (WGMs) with a metallic nanoparticle-based assay. They provided a computational model based on generalized Mie theory to explain the higher sensitivity of protein detection. Furthermore, they quantitatively analyzed the binding of a model protein (i.e., Bovine Serum Albumin) to gold nanoparticles from high-Q WGM resonance frequency shifts, and fit the results to an adsorption isotherm, which agrees with the theoretical predictions of a two-component adsorption model.