Biosensors for the detection of cardiovascular risk markers in human serum

This paper presents two affinity-based biosensor implementations for the detection and quantification of cardiovascular risk proteins/markers, such as C-reactive protein, myoglobin, TNF-alpha, serum amyloid, using specific antibodies. The first method is based on interdigitated microelectrodes while the other is based microarrays. The signal transduction in micro-IDEs from biological-signal to the electronic/electrical signal occurs via fringe fields and dielectric change, induced by the capture of antigens by already immobilized antibody between the microelectrodes. Being process/integration-compatible with microelectronic/fabrication technologies, this method provides many advantages for the utilization in portable and/or remote sensing applications, such as smaller size, lower power consumption, small sample consumption, disposability, etc. The other method also analyzes the capability and reliability of sandwich-type antibody microarrays for the detection quantification of cardiovascular risk markers, using optical scanner system for the detection of fluorescent-labeled, sandwiched-structured antibodies on the chemically modified glass substrates. Our findings in micro-array study provides the advantages for lab-based detection and quantification applications such as being able to detect and quantify multiple markers at once and also better dynamic ranges over some of the commercial ELISA test-kits.