A Microfluidic Channel for Detecting Respiratory Pathogens in Young Children

In recent years, biosensors have achieved wide spread use in many domains. This is due to their advantages such as rapid and continuous measurement, high specificity, fewer reagents required for calibration, fast response time, and the ability to measure non-polar molecules that cannot be estimated by conventional devices. There are various types of biosensors, and among them, electrochemical biosensors provide a promising approach to rapid medical diagnostics of the small infection-biomarkers such as pathogens that may lead to more timely and effective decision-making. In addition, because of specific advantages of microfluidic devices, such as large surface-to-volume ratio, they are one of the most significant components of point of care testing. Point of care testing based on microfluidic channels work with very little human intervention, decrease human errors and use a minimum amount of power consumption. The focus of the present thesis is to introduce and design a microfluidic electrochemical biosensor in order to detect a specific respiratory pathogen among young children. Micropillar array electrodes were developed on the surface of the working electrode to enhance surface area which leads to increase the number of antibodies and the number of target analytes that are adsorbed on the surface. Hence, using micropillar array electrodes improves the operation of the biosensor, especially with low amount of target concentration.