Immunodiagnostics and Immunosensor Design

Abstract

This work compiles information on the principles of diagnostic immunochemical methods and the recent advances in this field. It presents an overview of modern techniques for the production of diagnostic antibodies, their modification with the aim of improving their diagnostic potency, the different types of immunochemical detection systems, and the increasing diagnostic applications for human health that include specific disease markers, individualized diagnosis of cancer subtypes, therapeutic and addictive drugs, food residues, and environmental contaminants. A special focus lies in novel developments of immunosensor techniques, promising approaches to miniaturized detection units and the associated microfluidic systems. The trends towards high-throughput systems, multiplexed analysis, and miniaturization of the diagnostic tools are discussed. It is also made evident that progress in the last few years has largely relied on novel chemical approaches.

Multiplexed Electrochemical Immunosensors for Clinical Biomarkers

“…These advantages extend also to multiplexed systems [ 3 ] which are uniquely positioned to provide faster, point of care (POC) devices to detect biomarkers for clinical diagnosis [ 4 ]. This type of biosensor technology relies on multiple transductors and/or detection tags that act independently for each specific analyte [ 5 ]. In the particular case of multiplexed electrochemical immunosensors, they possess additional advantages related with improved detection efficiency, with detection limits reaching levels as low as units of femtograms per milliliter [ 6 ], reduced sample volume, versatility, and reliability, providing, in addition, good precision and reproducibility [ 7 ] and short time for analysis [ 8 ].…”