An Advanced Healthcare Sensing Platform for Direct Detection of Viral Proteins in Seconds at Femtomolar Concentrations via Aerosol Jet 3D‐Printed Nano and Biomaterials

Abstract

Sensing of viral antigens has become a critical tool in combating infectious diseases. Current sensing techniques have a tradeoff between sensitivity and time of detection; with 10–30 min of detection time at a relatively low sensitivity and 6–12 h of detection at a high (picomolar) sensitivity. In this research, uniquely nanoengineered interfaces are demonstrated on 3D electrodes that enable the detection of spike antigens of SARS‐CoV‐2 and their variants in seconds at femtomolar concentrations with excellent specificity, thus, overcoming this tradeoff. The 3D electrodes, manufactured using a high‐resolution aerosol jet 3D nanoprinter, consist of a microelectrode array of sintered gold nanoparticles coated with graphene and antibodies specific to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) spike antigens. An impedance‐based sensing modality is employed to sense several pseudoviruses of SARS‐CoV‐2 variants of concern (VOCs). This device is sensitive to most of the pseudoviruses of SARS‐CoV‐2 VOCs. A high sensitivity of 100 fm, along with a low limit‐of‐detection of 9.2 fm within a test range of 0.1–1000 pm, and a detection time of 43 s are shown. This work illustrates that effective nano‐bioengineering of interfaces can be used to create an ultrafast and ultrasensitive healthcare diagnostic tool for combating emerging infections.

A detailed analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequencing and conventional PCR-based testing for the diagnosis of bacterial pathogens and discovery of novel bacteria

“…Co-infection with other bacteria or viruses can often affect the pathogenicity and persistence of APG in the host, and the environmental conditions also play a crucial role. Various studies have highlighted the importance of early diagnosis (Ali et al, 2022a; Ali et al, 2024; Ali et al, 2022b; Zhang et al, 2021) and vaccination (Quan et al, 2018; Zhang et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2018a; Zhang et al, 2018b; Zhang et al, 2022; Zhang et al, 2023; Zhu et al, 2017) as effective tools in combating IC and preventing the infection of other pathogens.…”