Detection: a challenging bioengineering-approach combined with biosensors for the detection of blood analytes in healthy and pathological conditions
The uncontrolled and unexpected worldwide spread of COVID-19 has posed the problem to find new, rapid and effective solutions to manage and reduce the infection. Due to the gravity of the situation, several research groups all over the world are focusing their work on COVID-19, and in particular on its viral parameters. Many of these works are addressed to assess the validity of serological testing, aimed at measuring blood levels of immunoglobulins IgG and IgM, to identify patients affected by COVID-19. From this perspective, the focus of Detection is the development and optimization of an innovative lab-on-chip platform based on real-time detection of blood analytes in a microfluidic system mimicking physiological microcirculation in pathological conditions. In the last decades, microfluidics has been one of the most common techniques used for the development of devices which can mimic the passage of blood in the microvascular network. Here, a microfluidic device made of a network of microchannels, which can reproduce blood microcirculation, is integrated with specific in-line biosensors based on organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) enabling to detect rapidly and selectively the presence and concentration of some blood antibodies, like IgG and IgM, involved in COVID-19.
