Bio-amplifying lab-on-a-chip for antipsychotic clozapine treatment monitoring

We present the first demonstration of an electrochemically-active biomaterial probe for schizophrenia treatment monitoring, and its integration in lab-on-a-chip devices. The probe consists of the naturally derived polymer, chitosan, grafted with catechol to provide a redox cycling system. These modifications to the probe significantly amplify the electrochemical signal generated by the antipsychotic drug clozapine, improving the signal-to-noise ratio and overall biosensing performance. The amplified signal generated by clozapine using the lab-on-a-chip with catechol-modified chitosan microelectrodes was 2.46-fold higher compared to unmodified microelectrodes. Additionally, human serum was tested to resemble future utilization in point-of-care analysis of schizophrenia patients.