Biosensors in Microfluidic Devices: Recent advances and future trends

MADRID, ROSSANA E.

Córdoba

Congreso; II Brazil-Argentine Microfluidics Congress, V Congreso de Microfluídica Argentina; 2019

Plenary KeynoteBiosensorsare useful and interesting devices that made a wide range of biomedical,environmental or food determinations. These devices emerge in the sixties inthe last century, and from that moment they had a great evolution both in theapplications and in the technologies involved. Biosensors combine a molecularrecognition element, the bioreceptor, with a signal conversion unit, thephysical transducer. Over the last few years, biosensors were thought towardsnew fields of application. The recent advances in electrochemical biosensors,that incorporates nanotechnology, and their integration into compact analysisdevices, may contribute to protect human and animal health, to facilitateenvironmental monitoring and ensure food safety. On the other hand,microfluidics, a very useful and promising technology, which emerged in theearly 1990s arise for applications related to chemical separations, but now, ithas been applied to a wide range of other applications, both for diagnostic andfor synthesis. Moreover, when microfluidic is combined with biosensors, thepossibilities seem to be limitless. The integration of biosensors withmicrofluidics provides miniaturized devices with very desirable properties,which combine the advantages of biosensors, such as low sample and reagentsvolumes, fast response and low-cost analysis; with microfluidics advantages suchas laminar flow, minimal handling of hazardous materials, multiple sampledetection in parallel, portability and versatility in design. The combinationbetween electrochemical and microfluidic biosensors allows us to conceive threeareas of intersection, which according to the Venn diagram proposed by Rackuset al., 2015, would be (A) electrochemistry and microfluidics, (B)electrochemical biosensors, (C) microfluidic biosensors, and (D) microfluidicelectrochemical biosensors. There is a rich between electrochemistry,biosensors, and microfluidics, where the interesting topic is on how they arecombining to form new application-areas. This includes not only newapplication, but also new materials such as paper-based chips for Point-Of-Care(POC) devices, new fabrication processes and new architectures. The progress inthis area is so fast that, provided the scientific community focuses not onlyon the development of the bioanalytical systems but also on their validation,it will not take a long time to implement them in routine analysis.