Rational Design of Electrochemical DNA Biosensors for Point-of-Care Applications

Electrochemical DNA biosensors show great potential for the sensitive and sequence-specific detection of disease pathogens. To date, although there are a large number of published articles showing various sensing strategies of an electrochemical biosensor, only a few of those studies actually reach the commercialization phase, because addressing one technical issue would usually be at the expense of another. Moreover, there are various adoptable formats in electrochemical biosensors. Current approaches may or may not use enzymes, immobilize DNA probes, label the sensing substrates with an electroactive reporter molecule, or any combination of these. Although much has been paid to individual advantages and disadvantages, there are a very limited number Review articles studying and analyzing the synergistic aspects of various detection strategies when combined with each other. It is the aim of this Review to highlight the hotspots for innovation when these strategies are used in tandem, in order to create more streamlined improvements in making a versatile biosensor platform that can be administered at point of care.