Executive Summary : | Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a significant cause of mortality in both developed and developing countries, with approximately 30% of global deaths in 2005 attributed to CVD, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It is projected that CVD will become the leading cause of death in developing nations in the future. Psychosocial stress has been identified as a major contributor to CVD. Non-invasive point-of-care (POC) monitoring devices could be beneficial in diagnosing and managing individuals suffering from stress. Cortisol, the stress hormone, plays a vital role in the homeostasis of various physiological processes and can be detected in sweat. Therefore, sweat-based monitoring is preferred due to its ease of collection and analysis. Various methods are used to detect cortisol, but they suffer from long detection times, laborious sample preparation, low sensitivity, and high cost. Recently, aptamer sensors, novel electrochemical immunosensors, and imprinted sensor methods have been developed to detect cortisol due to their rapid analysis speed, low cost, and high sensitivity. However, conventional electrodes used in these sensors are subject to fabrication costs, self-oxidation, and internal resistance, which can affect the electrochemical activity of the sensor. Therefore, a microfluidics integrated graphene quantum dot (GQD) based biosensor is proposed for rapid, accurate, non-invasive, and early cortisol detection utilizing electrochemical and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) techniques. Microfluidics integrated quantum dot based biosensors have immense potential to generate newer and advanced technologies with much higher sensitivity and specificity within a miniaturized system. Carbon-derived nanomaterials, especially GQDs, have emerged as promising nanomaterials for electrochemical and FRET biosensors due to their remarkable properties, including stable photoluminescence, good biocompatibility, low cytotoxicity, excellent water solubility, and high electrical and thermal conductivity with tunable band gap. GQDs are an excellent candidate for both electrochemical and FRET biosensors for cortisol detection. In addition to cortisol, cytokines and tumor necrosis factors (TNF) can be explored in sweat to understand the underlying mechanisms of stress. The proposed biosensor could lead to the development of rapid tests for cortisol detection, which are easy to use, inexpensive, highly sensitive, provide rapid diagnosis, do not require specialized equipment, and are portable, making them ideal for use in POC devices. |
Co-PI: | Dr. Mayank Goswami
Indian Institute Of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand,Roorkee - Haridwar Highway, Roorkee,Uttarakhand,Haridwar-247667
Prof. Krishna Mohan Poluri
Indian Institute Of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand,Roorkee - Haridwar Highway, Roorkee,Uttarakhand,Haridwar-247667 |