Biosensors & bioelectronics
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Biosens Bioelectron · Sep 2020
Comparative StudyUltra-sensitive and high-throughput CRISPR-p owered COVID-19 diagnosis.
Recent research suggests that SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals can be highly infectious while asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, and that an infected person may infect 5.6 other individuals on average. This situation highlights the need for rapid, sensitive SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic assays capable of high-throughput operation that can preferably utilize existing equipment to facilitate broad, large-scale screening efforts. We have developed a CRISPR-based assay that can meet all these criteria. ⋯ CRISPR assay diagnostic results obtained nasal swab samples of individuals with suspected COVID-19 cases were comparable to paired results from a CDC-approved quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) assay performed in a state testing lab, and superior to those produced by same assay in a clinical lab, where the RT-qPCR assay exhibited multiple invalid or inconclusive results. Our assay also demonstrated greater analytical sensitivity and more robust diagnostic performance than other recently reported CRISPR-based assays. Based on these findings, we believe that a CRISPR-based fluorescent application has potential to improve current COVID-19 screening efforts.
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Biosens Bioelectron · Jan 2019
Microneedle-based biosensor for minimally-invasive lactate detection.
Here we report the first mediated microneedles-based biosensor for minimally invasive continuous sensing of lactate in the dermal interstitial fluid (ISF). To further demonstrate the capability of microneedle arrays as second generation biosensors we have functionalized gold microneedles with nanocarbons at which mediated electron transfer of lactate oxidase takes place. ⋯ The performance of the microneedle array, second generation biosensor for lactate detection was assessed in artificial interstitial fluid and in human serum, both spiked with lactate. The results reveal that the new microneedles lactate sensor holds interesting promise for the development of a real-time monitoring device to be used in sport medicine and clinical care.
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Biosens Bioelectron · Oct 2018
'Plug-and-Power' Point-of-Care diagnostics: A novel approach for self-powered electronic reader-based portable analytical devices.
This paper presents an innovative approach in the portable Point-of-Care diagnostics field, the Plug-and-Power concept. In this new disposable sensor and plug-and-play reader paradigm, the energy required to perform a measurement is always available within the disposable test component. The reader unit contains all the required electronic modules to run the test, process data and display the result, but does not include any battery or power source. ⋯ The feasibility of this Plug-and-Power approach is demonstrated in this work with the development of a self-powered portable glucometer consisting of two parts: a test strip including a paper-based power source and a paper-based biofuel cell as a glucose sensor; and an application-specific battery-less electronic reader designed to extract the energy from the test strip, process the signal provided and show the glucose concentration on a display. The device was tested with human serum samples with glucose concentrations between 5 and 30 mM, providing quantitative results in good agreement with commercial measuring instruments. The advantages of the present approach can be extended to any kind of biosensors measuring different analytes and biological matrices, and in this way, strengthen the goals of Point-of-Care diagnostics towards laboratory decentralization, personalized medicine and improving patient compliance.
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Biosens Bioelectron · Dec 2017
A neural blood pressure marker for bioelectronic medicines for treatment of hypertension.
A novel therapeutic approach for treating resistant hypertension could be the use of bioelectronic medicines to achieve blood pressure (BP) control in implanted patients by closed-loop stimulation of the left vagus nerve (LVN). However, such a technology would require an implantable BP marker, which is not available yet. As it is known that the LVN conducts afferent BP-related signals, this study aimed to investigate if such signals could be recorded with implantable means and used to derive BP markers. ⋯ Through this procedure, afferent BP-related neural profiles (BPnPs) were derived from the LVN signals. As the BPnPs represented accurate copies of the BP waves, the timing parameters of both waveforms were almost the same and the BPnP amplitude increased linearly with the diastolic, systolic and mean BP. These results indicate that the BPnPs comprise accurate BP information and that the BPnP amplitude could serve as a BP marker in implantable systems.
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Biosens Bioelectron · May 2017
Continuous minimally-invasive alcohol monitoring using microneedle sensor arrays.
The present work describes an attractive skin-worn microneedle sensing device for the minimally invasive electrochemical monitoring of subcutaneous alcohol. The device consists of an assembly of pyramidal microneedle structures integrated with Pt and Ag wires, each with a microcavity opening. ⋯ The skin penetration ability and the efficaciousness of the biosensor performance towards subcutaneous alcohol monitoring was substantiated by the ex vivo mice skin model analysis. Our results reveal that the new microneedle sensor holds considerable promise for continuous non-invasive alcohol monitoring in real-life situations.