Anisotropic interactions between thermotropic liquid crystals and surfaces typically cause liquid crystals to be "anchored" in one or more orientations near surfaces. In this talk, we report the use of surface anchoring phenomena involving liquid crystals for the imaging of biomolecular recognition events on surfaces. The approach is based on the observation that anisotropic forces acting between a liquid crystal and an appropriately designed surface can be perturbed by the formation of biological complex es on the surface. The change in structure of the liquid crystal near the surface is communicated deep into the bulk liquid crystal because the orientational correlation lengths of liquid crystals are typically large (micrometers). We report the design o f surfaces with nanometer-scale topography and patterned surface chemistry such that protein molecules, upon binding to ligands hosted on these surfaces, trigger changes in the orientations of 1-20 micrometer-thick films of supported liquid crystals, thu s corresponding to a reorientation of ~100,000-1,000,000 mesogens per protein. Binding-induced changes in the intensity of light transmitted through the liquid crystal are easily seen with the naked eye and can be further amplified by using surfaces desig n ed so t hat protein-ligand recognition causes twisted nematic liquid crystals to untwist. We also use the average gray-scale brightness of the optical appearance of the supported liquid crystal to construct an optical response curve as a function of the amount of bound protein. This approach to detection of ligand-receptor binding does not require labeling of the analyte, does not require the use of a complex apparatus, provides a spatial resolution of micrometers, and is sufficiently simple that it may find use in rapid, direct-read assays performed away from centralized laboratories.