Title: A Review of Commercialisation Issues for Biosensors and Bioelectronics

Biography:

David Tolfree, a professional physicist and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Physics, has forty years’ R&D and senior management experience working for the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority and Science Research Councils (SRCs). In the 1990s he was head of the EPSRC’s Daresbury Laboratory’s European Office and its Research Services. He was also a consultant to a UK Government Dept for the exploitation of micro-nano technologies, and one of the founders of MANCEF and the UK Institute of Nanotechnology. In 1999 he co-foundered Technopreneur Ltd, a consultant company for the exploitation of emergent technologies. David has organized, chaired and been a speaker at over 42 international conferences on micro-nano and emerging technologies. He has 186 publications that include books, newspapers, journal and magazine articles and conference proceedings, and has given invited talks on radio and television on those subjects. David is currently the European Vice President of MANCEF International and its Executive Director. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the International magazine CMM and a regular writer of topical science and technology issues.

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic has given an unparalleled escalating demand for accurate, low cost, biosensor systems for the early detection of the disease COVID-19. This has led to an unpredicted need for the availability of commercially mass-produced rapid diagnostics. The rapid community-spread of novel human coronavirus 2019 (nCOVID19 or SARS-Cov2) and morbidity statistics has put forth an unprecedented urge for rapid diagnostics for quick and sensitive detection followed by contact tracing and containment strategies, especially when no vaccine or therapeutics are known. The rapid community-spread of novel human coronavirus 2019 (nCOVID19 or SARS-Cov2) and morbidity statistics has put forth an unprecedented urge for rapid diagnostics for quick and sensitive detection followed by contact tracing and containment strategies, especially when no vaccine or therapeutics are known. While conventional technologies such as quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are used to detect COVID-19, they are time-consuming, labour-intensive and are sparsely unavailable in remote settings. Point-of-care (POC) paper-based biosensors, such as lateral flow test strips or microfluidic biosensors are typically low-cost and user-friendly, are now being used for rapid diagnosis but since they are indicators do not always produce accurate results. These sensitive specific biosensors are used to detect antibodies, antigens or nucleic acids in samples of saliva, sputum and blood. followed by contact tracing and containment strategies, Biosensors can be applied for medical diagnosis of many other diseases, environmental monitoring, food, water, and agricultural product processing. They can be connected to smartphones and tablets to provide a quick personalised result to uses that save time and enables clinicians to spend it on seriously infected patients.