Biosensors Developed for Detection of Gram-negative Bacteria Species
Student: Rudy Acosta
Degree: M.S., July 2021
Major Professor: Dr. Z. Ryan Tian
Research Area(s):
Physical & Chemical Sensors
Biological Materials & Processes
Background/Relevance
- Current methods in the market for bacteria detection are time consuming, expensive, user unfriendly, and likely to produce false negative/positive results more often than desired.
- Compact and inexpensive bacterial sensors have been long-overdue to industry, homeland security, and clinics.
Innovation
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By modifying the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, various bacterial strains can be identified by monitoring the RFID signals in real-time and single-cell sensitivity at low-cost.
Approach
- Deposit rGO-TiO2/polymer nanocomposite thin films (sensing layer) on the surface of an RFID tag’s hot spot.
- Using the modified tag to detect the bacteria at various concentrations.
- Integrating the tag with a custom-made flow cell for detecting bacteria e.g. bacillus B (see below)
Key Results
- As shown below, there is a linear correlation between the tag’s impedance and number of bacterial cells.
- Our new sensory nanocomposites made the tag able to show different signals for every bacterium at various concentrations.
Conclusions and Future Work
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Bacteria appear to have their characteristic impedance and frequency patterns when interacting with the RFID sensor.
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Further testing will be conducted to further improving the detection of bacterial cells in a flow cell.
