Recently, Ph.D. student Yingchun Li from BEBC has published her first author paper in Journal of The Electrochemical Society entitled "A Portable Electrochemical Platform Integrated with a 3D AuNPs/CNTs Sponge for Point-of-Care Testing of Neurotransmitters".

Abstract:

Point-of-care testing (POCT) of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine (DA) and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), can be used for early diagnosis of neurological diseases. Among various POCT platforms, electrochemical method-based platforms have attracted increasing interest owning to their high detection sensitivity and specificity as well as fast response time. In this work, we developed a portable electrochemical POCT platform for detection of neurotransmitters, which is based on integration of a three-dimensional (3D) gold nanoparticles/carbon nanotubes (AuNPs/CNTs) sponge synthesized by a simple in-situ growth and eco-friendly ice-templating method modified screen-printed electrode with a miniaturized USB electrochemical analyzer. We demonstrated the good performance of the portable electrochemical platform for detection of two typical neurotransmitters, i.e., DA and 5-HT, with detection sensitivities of 1.02 uA uM^-1 cm^-2 and 0.55 uA uM^-1 cm^-2, and detection limits of 0.06 uM and 0.30 uM for DA and 5-HT, respectively. We further verified the feasibility and practicability of the platform by simultaneous detection of DA and 5-HT in spiked saliva. The developed portable electrochemical platform provides a simple and user-friendly way for early diagnosis of neurological diseases in the future, especially at point of care.

The work is under the guidance of Professor Feng Xu and Professor Fei Li. The co-authors of the paper include Zedong Li, Hao Liu, Siyue Chen, Xiaojin Guo, Min Lin and Fei Li.