Paper by ECE-NTUA Ph.D. candidate A. Georgas received the Best Oral Presentation Award in Metrology 2022


We are pleased to announce that the paper entitled "Biosensor development for rapid SARS-CoV-2 detection" received the Best Oral Presentation Award in the 8th Metrology Conference (Metrology 2022) that was held on July 1-2, 2022, in Thessaloniki, Greece.

The award-winning paper was co-authored by A. Georgas, E. Lampas, D. P. Houhoula, A. Skoufias, S. Patsilinakos, I. Tsafaridis, G. P. Patrinos, N. Adamopoulos, A. Ferraro, E. Hristoforou.

Abstract:

The spread of the SARS-CoV-2 and its increasing threat to human health worldwide have necessitated the development of new technological tools to combat the virus. Particular emphasis is given to the development of diagnostic methods that monitor the spread of the virus rapidly and effectively. In this study, we report the development and testing of an antibody-free biosensor, based on the immobilization of ACE2 protein on the surface of gold interdigitated electrode. When the sensor was used in laboratory conditions for targeting the virus’ structural spike protein, it showed a limit of detection [LOD] of 750pg/μL/mm2. Thereafter, the response of the sensor to swab and saliva samples from hospitalized patients was examined. The virus presence in the samples was confirmed by electrical effective capacitance measurements executed on the biosensor, and correlated with real-time PCR results. We verified that the biosensor can distinguish samples that are positive for the virus from those that are negative in a total of 7 positive and 16 negative samples. In addition, the biosensor can be used for semi-quantitative measurement, since its measurements are divided into 3 areas, the negative samples, the weakly positive and the positive samples. Reproducibility of the experiments was demonstrated with at least 3 replicates and stability was tested by keeping the sensor standby for 7 days at 4 °C before repeating the experiment. This work presents a biosensor that can be used as a fast-screening test at point of care detection of SARS-CoV-2 since it needs less than 2 minutes to provide results and is of simple operation.

Related published papers:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2022.114021

https://doi.org/10.3390/bios12070487