Acoustic biosensors for medical and environmental purposes

The massive use of pesticides, the persistence on the environment and the strong toxicity on animals and humans encourages the use of easy, quick and automated methods for the analysis of samples of environmental interest like water. On the same manner, there is also a need of analytical systems to accurately detect viruses and bacteria in human bodily fluids. Beyond the various analytical systems, immunosensors based on acoustic waves are of interest due to their good sensibility and their reproducibility. The aim of this presentation is to present highly sensitive and selective biosensors using the resonance frequency of quartz crystals for the monitoring of water pollutants and for the medical diagnosis. The whole architecture of the biosensor will be presented in details. Experimental results on different types of toxic compounds (such as pollutants) will be discussed and compared with other detection methods as bioluminescence approach.