This is the monthly networking meeting for faculty affiliated with NDnano. New faculty are welcome! For more information on affiliating with the Center, please contact Heidi Deethardt at deethardt.1@nd.edu.

Presenter: Kaiyu Fu, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Title

Leveraging Nanostructured Electrodes to Transform Electrochemical Biosensor for Real-Time Measurement

Abstract

The emerging biosensing devices broadly extend our capability to measure and monitor the biomolecules in living organisms. Electrochemical biosensors based on structure‐switching aptamers offer many advantages because they can operate directly in complex samples. They hold the exciting potential to integrate molecular detection with signal processing and wireless communication in a miniaturized, low‐cost system. However, as electrochemical biosensors are miniaturized to the micrometer scale, their signal‐to‐noise ratio degrades and reduces their utility for molecular diagnostics. In this talk, I will first present a novel electrochemical detection platform that consists of highly nanoporous electrodes for ultrasensitive biomolecule detection. I will explore how electron transfer and ion transport are coupled in the nanostructures for the mass-limited samples. Next, I will present a real-time sensing technology to measure molecules in live animals through nanoporous electrodes with surface-immobilized aptamers. This electrochemical-based aptamer biosensor can continuously read the target molecule's concentration profile and reaction kinetics. As an example, I will show an implantable biomedical device based on this biosensing technology to collect tissue-based pharmacokinetics and measure the concentrations of the chemotherapy drug at multiple tumor sites in a rodent model. Last, I will introduce a recent study that tailors electrode surface charge to discriminate and quantify chemically similar drugs and their metabolites. Ideally, this strategy will revolutionize drug molecule tracking to elucidate the difference in metabolic pathways in living organisms. Overall, this talk depicts a generalized approach to access in vivo real-time biochemical information for future clinical applications.