Sensing Biosystems and their Dynamics in Fluids with Organic Transistors BIODOT

The detection of biological and chemical species is central to many areas of health care and the life sciences, ranging from uncovering and diagnosing disease, to the discovery and screening of new drug molecules. Neuroscience, especially diagnostics and therapies of neurological diseases, demands for development of new devices with a highly sensitive mechanism of transduction of the biological and chemical signals. Devices based on organic semiconductors emerge as a powerful and versatile class of ultra-sensitive electrical transducers for direct and dynamic detection of biological species. In fact, they can be fabricated and easily integrated with micro- and nanofluidics devices by the use of sustainable nanofabrication techniques, downscaled and endowed with specific recognition functionality by design and tailoring of the materials. Our vision is a hybrid bio-organic technology for transduction of dynamical phenomena of biosystems in-vitro. The developed device is based on organic ultra thin film transistors integrated with microfluidics. It responds subtle changes of the electrostatic charge at the interface between the biosystem in the solution and the organic semiconductor. These changes are due, for instance, to the flow of ions, the adsorption and diffusion of charged or polarisable molecules, the motion of large biomolecules, and the activity of cells grown on the organic semiconductor. Preliminary results of the transduction of the dynamical behavior of peptides involved in neurological functions and neurons and glia cells will be shown. The signal is correlated with dynamical data from fluorescence and scanning probe microscopy and structural techniques at the micro- and nano-scales. The incorporation of neural cells into this technology aimed to achieve breakthroughs with respect to the state-of-the-art. This approach integrates nanoscience, nanofabrication, organic electronics, biotechnology and neuroscience and addresses the implications on social and cognitive sciences in the long term towards converging technologies. Acknowledgements: This work is supported by Project EU-NMP-STRP 032652 BIODOT.