Biosensors for quality control

KOCHI: With most people becoming conscious and aware of the quality of food, water and medicine, biosensors have started to play an important role in our lives.

They are fast becoming an important tool in research and commercial applications as they can identify specific targets in the human body and environment.

Glucose monitoring is familiar to most of us. Researchers are now working on remote sensing of airborne bacteria in bio-warfare, detection of pathogens, determining levels of toxic substances before and after bioremediation, routine blood urine analysis, drug residues in food and the human body.

While human senses provide essential information about our close environment, researchers are looking for new sensors that will give us an analysis of the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. This requires novel chemical sensors, molecular recognition and signal transduction.

Electrochemical sensors have caught the interest of the industry because of their remarkable ability in detection, experimental simplicity and low cost. The Department of Applied Chemistry at Cusat has been working on electrochemical sensors to detect metal ions and drugs in the human body.

Working on research projects funded by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the team has made biosensors to detect metal ions and drug residues.

“Clinical trials will be done later by the funding agency.

We have handed over the technology to the DRDO,’’ said K Girish Kumar, professor and head, Department of Applied Chemistry, Cusat.

“When we finished ‘Fabrication of potentiometric sensors for the determination of metal ions’ for DRDO, we got the next project, ‘Development of electrochemical sensors for the determination of pharmaceuticals’, which has been completed,’’ he said.

The team had an international collaboration with the Polish Academy of Sciences, a bilateral research programme of Department of Science and Technology (DST).

Girish says that the electrochemical sensors group plans to take up active research on enzyme immobilised biosensors and develop new Volta metric sensors for checking the quality of food in the market.

“Our ultimate aim is to develop disposable sensors,’’ he said.

sudha@expressbuzz.com