Disposable Sensors for Next-generation Point-of-care Diagnostics

Disposable sensors are affordable and easy-to-use sensing devices for short-term or single-shot measurements. Over the last decade, these devices have become increasingly important for various application fields, including from environmental, forensic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food monitoring to diagnostics, especially the point-of-care testing and wearables. In this talk, three different biosensing approaches using synthetic biology for next-generation point-of-care diagnostics will be presented: (i) Multiplexed on-site therapeutic drug monitoring of antibiotics from invasive and non-invasive samples toward personalized antibiotherapy, (ii) CRISPR-powered electrochemical biosensors for nucleic-acid-amplification-free, simultaneous and on-site detection of multiple RNAs and other biomolecules for COVID-19 management, and (iii) light-controlled dynamic bioassays using optogenetic switches (OptoAssays) for wash- and pump-free point-of-care diagnostics. Overcoming the challenges of the state-of-the-art devices, synthetic biology-driven disposable sensors have the potential to democratize the diagnostics across the globe, by providing low-cost, highly scalable and easy-to-operate solutions with facile long-term storage capabilities.