Principal Investigator: Prof. Sahika Inal
Poster Presenter: Tianrui Chang
Lab:
In response to the ever-growing demand for rapid virus detection assays, Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have emerged as an electronic transducer. The OECT can transduce and amplify biological binding events into an electronic output. To do so, bio-recognition elements should be immobilized onto the electronics, allowing to monitor of binding events without dye-based labels and bulky instruments.
Nanobodies (single domain antibody fragments-VHHs) offer several advantages as recognition units, such as the small footprint, high affinity to the selected target, and excellent chemical, thermal, and conformational stability. The single-domain nature of the nanobodies permits a high coupling density of capture probes on the electronic surface, rendering the analyte detection sensitive with a broad dynamic range.
In this work, we developed an OECT and nanobody-based device virus detection. The multiplexed sensing platform enables the detection of RSV, IAV, and IBV viruses based on specific binding between the viral protein and the respective nanobody. Target binding changes the electrochemical potential of the OECT gate electrode, visualized as a large change in the output response of the OECT. We tested these three targets in the attomolar to the nanomolar range and found the detection limit to be at the femtomolar level with high selectivity.