Conventional analytical instruments for detecting biochemical and biological species are often expensive, complex and voluminous. Research efforts have to be made to develop simple and compact devices to provide complementary solutions to traditional analytical techniques. These biosensors must interface between the physical, chemical and biological environments by combining molecular recognition elements with a detection transducer.
This study relies on an innovative approach called Lab-Around-Fiber. This method consists in biofunctionalizing silica optical fibers by grafting antibodies onto their external surface, resulting in the specific capture of biological targets of interest. The optical fiber sensor, in our case a fiber Bragg grating, acts as a transducer converting the biochemical signal into an optical signal; the functional layer (gold nanoparticle and antibodies) grafted onto the fiber surface serves as a bioreceptor; collectively forming the integrated sensor. Its proper functioning and sensitivity enable the detection of target biomolecules binding, such as those associated with Antimicrobial resistance.
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