Fundamental building blocks for molecular biowire based forward error-correcting biosensors

Abstract

This paper describes the fabrication, characterization and modeling of fundamental logic gates that can be used for designing biosensors with embedded forward error-correction (FEC). The proposed logic gates (AND and OR) are constructed by patterning antibodies at different spatial locations along the substrate of a lateral flow immunosensor assay. The logic gates operate by converting binding events between an antigen and an antibody into a measurable electrical signal using polyaniline nanowires as the transducer. In this study, B. cereus and E. coli have been chosen as model pathogens. The functionality of the AND and OR logic gates has been validated using conductance measurements with different pathogen concentrations. Experimental results show that the change in conductance across the gates can be modeled as a log-linear response with respect to varying pathogen concentration. Equivalent circuits models for AND and OR logic gates have been derived based on measured results.