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Monitoring of circulating N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) biomarkers is crucial for the diagnosis of people suffering from heart failure (HF). In this work, we describe a novel ultra-sensitive NT-proBNP immunosensor for NT-proBNP detection in artificial human saliva. The surface of the developed immunosensor based on gold working microelectrodes (WEs) was biofunctionalized through carboxyl diazonium to immobilize anti-NT-proBNP antibodies. The chemical surface modification of WEs was carried out by cyclic voltammetery CV whilst the quantification of NT-proBNP biomarkers was made by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The immunosensor has demonstrated a linear detection response within the range 1–20 pg/mL for NTproBNP detection in artificial human saliva with a good selectivity in the presence of other interferences.

The development of miniaturized potentiostats capable of measuring in a wide range of conditions and with full characteristics (e.g., wide bandwidth and capacitive/inductive contribution to sensor’s impedance) is still an unresolved challenge in bioelectronics. We present a simple analogue design coupled to a digital filter based on a lock-in amplifier as an alternative to complex architectures reported hitherto. A low-cost, miniaturized and fully integrated acquisition electronic system was developed, tested for a fully integrated three-lead electrochemical biosensor and benchmarked against a commercial potentiostat. The portable potentiostat was coupled to an array of miniaturized gold working electrodes to perform complex impedance analyses for tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) cytokine detection. This wearable potentiostat is very promising for the development of low-cost point-of-care (POC) with low power consumption., The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s 7FP (SEA-on-a-CHIP, Grant Agreement No. 614168) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 (HEARTEN, Grant Agreement No. 643694). R.P. acknowledges an FPU grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.

Directed self-assembly of block copolymers is a bottom-up approach to nanofabrication that has attracted high interest in recent years due to its inherent simplicity, high throughput, low cost and potential for sub-10 nm resolution. In this paper, we review the main principles of directed self-assembly of block copolymers and give a brief overview of some of the most extended applications. We present a novel fabrication route based on the introduction of directed self-assembly of block copolymers as a patterning option for the fabrication of nanoelectromechanical systems. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the fabrication of suspended silicon membranes clamped by dense arrays of single-crystal silicon nanowires of sub-10 nm diameter. Resulting devices can be further developed for building up high-sensitive mass sensors based on nanomechanical resonators.