Introduction to biosensing
One of very basic idea why we need to study biosensing is as follows. It is very crucial to routine determination of bacterial species inside foodstuff and water resource. Thus, methods are being developed. There various methods, one such classical methods is nucleic acid hybridization assay, but this method is time consuming. So, this is why biosensors are developed to produce such reversible, sensitive, reusable, reliable and simple enough to use.
A biosensor is an analytical device composed of a biological sensing element (enzyme, receptor antibody or DNA) in intimate contact with a physical transducer (optical, mass or electrochemical) which together relate the concentration of an analyte to a measurable electrical signal. In theory, and verified to a certain extent in the literature, any biological sensing element may be paired with any physical transducer. The majority of reported biosensor research has been directed toward development of devices for clinical markets; however, driven by a need for better methods for environmental surveillance, research into this technology is also expanding to encompass environmental applications.
Biosensing is also a biological diagnostic techniques which are used to measure the presence and levels contaminants in drinking water and other water environments (e.g., reservoirs, seawater and ballast water (Liu and Lay, 2007). The ultimate purpose is to rapid and sensitive on-site detection methos for contaminants reliably and selectively. These reasons has brought to the development of a simple yet complicated device called Lab on a chip (LOAC) device. LOAC is one device among others which is hoped to overcome difficulties faced by other techniques and achieve rapid, sensitive, selective and detection which is reliable, accurate and economical.
Biosensor technology lends itself to fast, economical and continuous monitoring capabilities, development of these systems to complement classical analytical measurements is expected to result in a substantial cost benefit, especially when sample turnaround time and cost per analysis are important issues. Biosensors are currently being considered for development for detection of environmental pollutants such as phenols, genotoxins, and pesticides such as organophosphates, 2,4-D, etc.
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