Advanced protein coatings for biosensors

The ability to test for diseases at home or the doctor's office is attractive for the patient and for the healthcare provider owing to the convenience and cost saving. In order for devices for such self-testing or point-of-care tests to compete with, or complement laboratory-based professional testing, they will need to be reliable. The detection method is usually based on a specific capture surface, which is almost always comprised of immobilised antibody or other protein molecule that binds to the disease marker, resulting in an electronic or optical output. However, biological samples such as blood are complex and have components that can bind non-specifically to the surface causing false signals. Laboratory analysers have washing and signal enhancement steps to overcome this; but such features are costly to incorporate into miniaturised home-testing devices. Orla Protein Technologies has a reliable method for the immobilisation of capture proteins. In this project we aim to re-engineer this technology to abolish non-specific binding and create a sensitive low-non-specific-binding coating that will be a critical component of miniaturised biosensors.