Innovative nano-carbon based electrochemical monitoring of female hormones

• Grant number: 24/07300-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Martos Buoro
• Grantee: Rafael Martos Buoro
• Principal researcher abroad: Katarzyna Siuzdak
• Institution abroad: Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química de São Carlos (IQSC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Increasing awareness about human health and the surrounding environment force people to undertake actions both to prevent diseases and cope with them using innovative therapies, and to protect the environment against pharmaceutical contaminants that may result from these therapies. The extensive use of steroid pharmaceutical formulations (e.g. estrogens, progestogens, glucocorticoids) for contraception and hormonal therapies contributes to the exponential growth of endocrine disruptors released in the environmental, which wastewater treatment plants are struggling to remove effectively and completely. Both natural and synthetic steroid hormones and their metabolites excreted by humans contaminate the water, causing not only adverse effects on aquatic organisms destroying the reproduction cycle of wildlife, but also further deregulating the human normal hormonal balance. Due to the significant role of hormones and until specific limit values are established for the endocrine-disrupting steroids and hormones, thorough research and risk assessments should be the priority. The goal of the established international, continental, and cultural consortium including both representative from science and industry, is to develop a portable device enabling electrochemical monitoring of hormone in a small, microlitre portion of water samples containing innovative carbon nanostructures bio-tailored towards highly selective and sensitive detection. Such continuous monitoring enables exploration of the technological approaches which can resolve this issue permanently. The fabrication route will take advantage from natural deep eutectic solvents since they are easy to prepare, exhibit lower toxicities than non-aqueous solvents, and occur in a large amount in nature so they do not meet the criteria of critical raw materials that is crucial for further development and commercialization. Conventionally diagnostics is carried out on a large scale and technically complex liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method - not portable and require sample preparation. Moreover, monitoring protocol will be elaborated considering features of the sensing interface and the investigated sample that will make it competitive to large scale analytical tool typically working at permanent settings. The proposed sensing platform act as an alternative and/or support for traditional hormone detection due to several advantages, including a rapid response time, ease of use, affordability, and potential applicability in point-of-care environments. The usage of bio-recognition via anchoring of specific aptamers/antibodies is crucial for highly selective detection within different sample matrixes. The project will start at TRL 1 (concept formulation) and will reach TRL 5 (validation in relevant environment), by developing of a microfluidic device integrated with modified nanostructured electrodes, enabling the continuous monitoring of various hormones in artificial body fluids and environmental water samples. The device will represent a proof-of-concept platform that will offer the possibility of transition to higher TRL, to provide opportunities for easy, low cost and sensitive detection of different hormones (i.e. estrogen, progesterone, luteinizing hormone (LH) or follicle-stimulating hormone) in samples of patients at the point-of-care (POC), thus enabling the early-stage detection and treatment monitoring of a wide variety of human endocrine disorders and assisted reproductive procedures, while screening and preventing the water contamination with persistent pharmaceutical pollutants resultant from these therapeutic approaches. Besides, the device can be further upgraded and combined with other recognition elements, making it capable to gather and transmit a wider range of information from residual waters, e.g. heavy metal ions; pesticides etc., integrated with portable display equipment like smartphone or developed to flexible wearable sensors. (AU)