Abstract

Integrated Biochemical and Electrochemical Sensors for Reaching the Unreached Biomarkers

Manish Biyani, Associate Professor, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Quantification of biological or chemical information through an easily processed electronic signal has become increasingly prevalent in clinical diagnostics, environmental monitoring and point-of-care testing. Advancement in portable electrochemistry such as development of disposable screen-printed electrochemical (DEP) chip by miniaturizing and printing solid electrode in parallel with high speed and affordability makes this an opportune moment to consider the prospects of its integration with affinity-based biosensing systems. However, converting the biological information to a nanoscale electrochemical signal is always a challenging issue due to the rich interface between nanoscience and biology.

This talk will introduce peptide aptamer-based electrochemical sensor technology, called ‘PEP-on-DEP’, to detect unreachable target molecules. For this, a sub-femtoliter bulk droplet system for compartmentalized in vitro selection has been developed that can efficiently screen affinity aptamer molecules. Peptide-based aptamers represent a relatively smart class of affinity binders and shows great promise in biosensor development. We then describe an integrated portable electrochemical biosensor platform based on newly identified peptide aptamer molecules. We grafted the selected peptide aptamers onto paramagnetic and gold nanoparticles and detect renin biomarker in one-step reaction using our originally developed screen printed electrode chip and USB powered portable potentiostat system. We demonstrated a highly selective detection of renin by ‘PEP-on-DEP’ concept. Added to the flexibility of this concept, i.e, generation/characterization of novel probes for unreachable target molecules, and integrability, i.e., merging newly identified aptamer with electrochemical transduction, allows to develop a more realistic biosensor which in principle be adaptable to develop a portable, low-cost and mass-producible biosensor for point-of-care applications.