Design and development of electrochemical sensors with application in bioanalysis

Abstract: Popular Abstract in English There is a continuous search for reliable, robust easy to use, portable and cost effective analytical tools with applications in food industry, biomedicine, environmental monitoring and homeland security. The main focus of the thesis was on the development of electrochemical (bio)sensors designed to detect analytes of key importance from biological matrixes (e.g., fermentation broth, meat samples and cell culture media) applied in two major fields of interest: food & beverage industry and biomedical research. Calpastatin, a meat tenderness biomarker, was successfully detected, from meat samples, with the developed label free capacitive immunosensors and amperometric immunoassays. Based on the amperometric immunoassay an electrochemical detection system has been designed, fabricated and applied for calpastatin quantification and the obtained values were correlated with Warner Bratzler Shear Force data, a routinely used method for meat tenderness determination. Glucose and ethanol were simultaneously monitored during a fermentation process with miniaturized enzyme based amperometric biosensors connected to a microdialysis probe. Beside the application in food analysis, it was shown the possibility of application of amperometric immunoassay for calpastatin and μ-calpain in biomedicine, both proteins having an important role in the pathology of several diseases. Electrochemical cellular dynamics monitoring has been achieved in real time by using a microfluidic cell culture system where the electrodes were integrated at the bottom of the cell culture chambers.