(Phys.org) —Some may think of turkeys as good for just lunch meat and holiday meals. But bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, saw inspiration in the big birds for a new type of biosensor that changes ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jan 21, 2014
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Cells are very good at protecting their precious contents—and as a result, it's very difficult to penetrate their membrane walls to deliver drugs, nutrients or biosensors without damaging or destroying the cell. One effective ...
Bio & Medicine
Aug 22, 2013
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Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan and China, have developed the world's smallest semiconductor laser, a breakthrough for emerging photonic technology with applications ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 26, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- Researchers have created an ultrasensitive biosensor that could open up new opportunities for early detection of cancer and "personalized medicine" tailored to the specific biochemistry of individual patients.
Nanophysics
May 15, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- Researchers led by Raffaele Mezzenga, a professor in Food and Soft Materials Science, have created a new nanocomposite made of graphene and protein fibrils: a special paper, which combines the best features ...
Nanomaterials
May 7, 2012
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By turning a common problem in chip manufacture into an advantage, MIT researchers produce structures only 30 atoms wide.
Nanophysics
Sep 1, 2011
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Stanford researchers have developed a new biosensor microchip that could significantly speed up the process of drug development. The microchips, packed with highly sensitive "nanosensors," analyze how proteins bind to one ...
Bio & Medicine
Apr 19, 2011
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New research shows that genetically modified cells can be made to communicate with each other as if they were electronic circuits. The study is a groundbreaking step toward building complex systems where the body's own cells ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 7, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- With an invention that can be made from some of the same parts used in CD players, University of Michigan researchers have developed a way to measure the growth and drug susceptibility of individual bacterial ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jan 17, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Demonstration of precision DNA-based nanoassembly method for making light-emitting particle clusters could lead to advances in solar cells, optoelectronics, and biosensors
Nanomaterials
Jul 26, 2010
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A biosensor is a device for the detection of an analyte that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector component.
It consists of 3 parts:
The most widespread example of a commercial biosensor is the blood glucose biosensor, which uses the enzyme glucose oxidase to break blood glucose down. In doing so it first oxidizes glucose and uses two electrons to reduce the FAD (a component of the enzyme) to FADH2. This in turn is oxidized by the electrode (accepting two electrons from the electrode) in a number of steps. The resulting current is a measure of the concentration of glucose. In this case, the electrode is the transducer and the enzyme is the biologically active component.
Recently, arrays of many different detector molecules have been applied in so called electronic nose devices, where the pattern of response from the detectors is used to fingerprint a substance. Current commercial electronic noses, however, do not use biological elements.
A canary in a cage, as used by miners to warn of gas could be considered a biosensor. Many of today's biosensor applications are similar, in that they use organisms which respond to toxic substances at a much lower level than us to warn us of their presence. Such devices can be used in environmental monitoring, trace gas detection and in water treatment facilities.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
