Work

Rapid Sensing of Biological and Environmental Analytes Using Microwave-Accelerated Bioassays and a MATLAB Application

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: We report a method for rapid detection and analysis of biological and environmental analytes by microwave-accelerated bioassays (MABs) and a novel MATLAB-based image processing of colorimetric signals. In this regard, colorimetric bioassays for histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP-2) and microcystin-leucine arginine (MC-LR) toxin were carried out using MABs and without microwave heating (i.e, gold standard bioassays). Our MATLAB-based detection method is based on the direct correlation of color intensity of a solution calculated from images captured with a smartphone with the concentration of the biomolecule of interest using a MATLAB code developed in-house. We demonstrated that our MATLAB-based detection method can yield bioassay sensitivity comparable to the colorimetric gold standard tool, i.e., UV-Visible spectroscopy. In addition, colorimetric bioassay time for the HRP-2 assay (used in malaria diagnosis) and colorimetric MC-LR bioassay (used in MCLR toxin diagnosis) was reduced from up to 2 hours at room temperature without microwave heating to 15 minutes using the MABs technique.

Source: Nano Biomedicine and Engineering

DOI: 10.5101/nbe.v11i2.p111-123

Authors: Enock Bonyi, Edward Constance, Zeenat Kukoyi, Sanjeeda Jafar, Kadir Aslan

Institution: Morgan State University

Language: English

Topic: Biosensors and Analytical Detection

Subfield: Biomedical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Army Research Laboratory

Awards: G5259331294, G5349873641, ASCEND Training Model to Increase Diversity in the Biomedical Research Workforce, G881609237