Identificador: TDX:2715
Autores: Acero Sánchez, Josep Lluís
Resumen:
Biosensors are analytical devices based on the specific interaction between a biological sensing element and its target molecule in combination with a transducer for signal processing. They have shown many practical applications to several research fields, from medical diagnostics to environmental analysis, and have great potential for commercialization. However, despite of the great expectations, there are just few examples of commercial biosensors, being the market mainly driven by the glucose sensors for people with diabetes with approximately 85 % of the world market. This slow penetration into the market could be attributed to the elevated development and production costs and some important technological hurdles, such as sensitivity, reproducibility, matrix effects in real samples, stability and quality assurance. In this work, we report on an easy strategy to reduce the manufacturing cost by simplifying the surface immobilisation method of the receptor proteins to a single step. This approach was achieved by the chemical introduction of disulfide groups into the protein structure and was applied to both antibodies and antigens for the optical and electrochemical detection of ischemic stroke and celiac disease related proteins respectively. Several potential advantages, such as miniaturisation, integration, multiplexing analysis, as well as the use of low cost disposable chips, should be exploited for the biosensors to impact on the market and migrate from sophisticated laboratories to the point-of-care. Working on that direction, we also report on a procedure for the multiplex amplification and detection of seven genetic markers for breast cancer with a single tumour cell sensitivity using a low-density electrode microarray manufactured on standard low-cost printed circuit board (PCB) substrates. This approach provides a novel strategy for the genetic profiling of tumour cells via integrated “amplification-to-detection”.
Repositori URV