Biosensors

Biosensors have seen an exponential expansion over the last years, playing an important role in environmental, food and clinical diagnostics. A biosensor is generally defined as a sensor combining a biochemical/biological component with a transducer element. The biological component of the sensor is responsible for the specific binding and may include an enzyme, an antibody, a cell or an organelle, while the transducer element can be any kind of device translating a biological interaction into a physical/chemical parameter. The biosensors using immuno-compounds as biological receptors are called immunosensors. These take advantage of the highly specificity and sensitivity of antibodies, allowing analyte measurement by the transduction of a parameter of the antigen-antibody reaction (electron transfer, fluorescence, mass change, thermal variation), into an electrical signal.