微生物および生化学技術ジャーナル

概要

Biosensor Technology as Diagnostic Tool for Detection of Pathogen

Abdallahi Abdurehman*

The detection of pathogenic microorganisms is the key in the prevention and identification of problems related to health and safety. Legislation is particularly tough in areas such as the food industry, where failure to detect an infection may have terrible consequences. Traditional and standard pathogen detection methods may take up to 7 or 8 days to yield an answer. This is clearly insufficient. Many researchers have recently geared their efforts towards the development of rapid diagnostic methods. The advents of new technologies, namely biosensors, have brought in new and promising approaches. The biosensor is an analytical device, which detect pathogens with a help of a bio-recognition receptor and convert the result into a measurable signal with the help of a transducer. It has vital application in areas such as clinical diagnosis, food industry, environmental monitoring and in other fields, where rapid and reliable analysis are needed. Starting with the discussion of various sensing techniques commonly used in microbial biosensing, this paper offers a description of recent developments in pathogen detection, identification and quantification, with an emphasis on biosensors.