Ultra-dense vertical electrochemical sensors toward the single-response multiplexed monitoring of Staphylococcus aureus

• Grant number: 23/02080-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: January 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Renato Sousa Lima
• Grantee: Renato Sousa Lima
• Host Investigator: Carlos D. Garcia
• Host Institution: Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais (CNPEM). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Clemson University, United States

Abstract

The antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been recently defined by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. AMR not only makes infections harder to be treated, but also it has been found out to increase the illness severity and hasten the spread of infections in hospitals and in the community. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) can decisively aid infection-against actions via the fast analysis of the efficiency of multiple antibiotics into the daily clinical practice, decreasing costs and accelerating the development of quality medicines. In this project, we aim to advance the ASTs for the pathogenic bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) by addressing the simultaneous monitoring of three samples employing an electrochemical respiration screening as recently described by the Garcia's group (Anal. Chem. 2022, 94, 16847) combined with a readily marketable, low-cost, reproducible, and user-friendly sensor. The latter is expected to deliver these multiplexed assays from single responses, thus allowing the use of handheld one-channel potentiostats. The S. aureus assay will rely on the detection of cell respiration rate redox reporters, merging the advantages of electrochemical sensors with the absence of recognition elements, thus avoiding the synthesis-tied issues and the poor stability of big-molecule recognition elements. Pioneering solutions in the (i) fabrication of devices and (ii) single-response multiplexing have been proposed as discussed next. Along the same lines and complementary to these developments, our lab has developed an unprecedented electrochemical sensor assembly that is readily marketable and combines (1) high analytical performance and the possibility of generating reproducible macro and microelectrodes under a plethora of layouts with (2) low cost (