Publications

Low-Cost, User-Friendly, All-Integrated Smartphone-Based Microplate Reader for Optical-Based Biological and Chemical Analyses

José Francisco Bergua, Ruslan Álvarez Diduk, Andrea Idili, Claudio Parolo, Marc Maymó, Liming Hu, and Arben Merkoci̧*. Analytical Chemistry
The quantitative detection of different molecular targets is of utmost importance for a variety of human activities, ranging from healthcare to environmental studies. Bioanalytical methods have been developed to solve this and to achieve the quantification of multiple targets from small volume samples. Generally, they can be divided...

A plug, print & play inkjet printing and impedance-base biosensing technology operating through a smartphone for clinical diagnostics

Giulio Rosati, Massimo Urban, Lei Zhao, Qiuyue Yang, Cecilia de Carvalho Castro e Silva, Stefano Bonaldo, Claudio Parolo, Emily P Nguyen, Gabriel Ortega, Paolo Fornasiero, Alessandro Paccagnella, Arben Merkoçi. Biosensors and Bioelectronics
Simplicity is one of the key feature for the spread of any successful technological product. Here, a method for rapid and low-cost fabrication of electrochemical biosensors is presented. This “plug, print & play” method involves inkjet-printing even in an office-like environment, without the need of highly specialized expertise...

Paper-Based Electrophoretic Bioassay: Biosensing in Whole Blood Operating via Smartphone

Amadeo Sena-Torralba, Ruslan Alvarez-Diduk, Claudio Parolo, Helena Torné-Morató, Alexander Müller, Arben Merkoci. Analytical Chemistry
Point-of-care (PoC) tests are practical and effective diagnostic solutions for major clinical problems, ranging from the monitoring of a pandemic to recurrent or simple measurements. Although, in recent years, a great improvement in the analytical performance of such sensors has been observed, there is still a major issue that has...

Rapid and Efficient Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Using an Electrochemical Aptamer-Based Sensor

Andrea Idili, Claudio Parolo, Ruslán Alvarez-Diduk, Arben Merkoçi. ACS Sensors
The availability of sensors able to rapidly detect SARS-CoV-2 directly in biological fluids in a single step would allow performing massive diagnostic testing to track in real time and contain the spread of COVID-19. Motivated by this, here, we developed an electrochemical aptamer-based (EAB) sensor able to achieve the rapid, reagentless,...

Electrochromism: An emerging and promising approach in (bio)sensing technology

Mohammad Amin Farahmand Nejad, Saba Ranjbar, ClaudioParolo, Emily P. Nguyen, Ruslan Álvarez-Diduk, Mohammad Reza Hormozi-Nezhad, ArbenMerkoçi. Materials Today
Electrochromism (EC) is a unique property of certain materials that undergo an electrochemical-induced change in colouration. During the last decades, electrochromic materials (ECMs) have been applied in a variety of technologies ranging from smart windows to information displays and energy storage devices. More recently, ECMs have...

The Microbiome Meets Nanotechnology: Opportunities and Challenges in Developing New Diagnostic Devices

Celia Fuentes-Chust, Claudio Parolo, Giulio Rosati, Lourdes Rivas, Karla Perez-Toralla, Stéphanie Simon, Itziar de Lecuona, Christophe Junot, Jonel Trebicka, Arben Merkoçi. Advanced Materials
Monitoring of the human microbiome is an emerging area of diagnostics for personalized medicine. Here, the potential of different nanomaterials and nanobiosensing technologies is reviewed for the development of novel diagnostic devices for the detection and measurement of microbiome-related biomarkers. Moreover, the current and future...

Improved Aliivibrio fischeri based-toxicity assay: graphene-oxide as a sensitivity booster with a mobile-phone application

José Francisco-Bergua, Ruslan Álvarez-Diduk, Liming Hu, Abdelrahim H.A.Hassan, Arben Merkoçi. Journal of Hazardous Materials
Recently, many bioluminescence-based applications have arisen in several fields, such as biosensing, bioimaging, molecular biology, and human health diagnosis. Among all bioluminescent organisms, Aliivibrio fischeri (A. fischeri) is a bioluminescent bacterium used to carry out water toxicity assays since the late 1970s. Since then,...

Tutorial: design and fabrication of nanoparticle-based lateral-flow immunoassays

Claudio Parolo, Amadeo Sena-Torralba, José Francisco Bergua, Enric Calucho, Celia Fuentes-Chust, Liming Hu, Lourdes Rivas, Ruslan Álvarez-Diduk, Emily P. Nguyen, Stefano Cinti, Daniel Quesada-González & Arben Merkoçi. Nature Protocols
Lateral-flow assays (LFAs) are quick, simple and cheap assays to analyze various samples at the point of care or in the field, making them one of the most widespread biosensors currently available. They have been successfully employed for the detection of a myriad of different targets (ranging from atoms up to whole cells) in all...

Recent advancement in biomedical applications on the surface of two-dimensional materials: from biosensing to tissue engineering

Emily P. Nguyen, Cecilia de Carvalho Castro Silva, Arben Merkoçi. Nanoscale
As biosensors and biomedical devices have become increasingly important to everyday diagnostics and monitoring, there are tremendous, and constant efforts towards developing and improving the reliability and versatility of such technology. As they offer high surface area-to-volume ratios and a diverse range of properties, from electronic...

2-dimensional materials-based electrical/optical platforms for smart on-off diagnostics applications

Jing Kou, Emily P. Nguyen, Arben Merkoçi and Zhenzhong Guo. 2D Materials
The concept of two-dimensional (2D) materials was first proposed after the first successful separation of graphene, a monoatomic layered material. 2D materials are referred to materials in which electrons can only move freely on the nanoscale in two dimensions, and have expanded to also include the transition metal dichalcogenides...