Applications biosensors for diagnostic medical devices

Tagit and coworkers developed surfaces which can act as nano-thermometers using quantum dots (QDs) attached to PNIPAM polymer brushes grafted onto a gold substrate. The luminescence of these QDs could be quenched by increasing the temperature above the LCST of PNIPAM, and recovered by decreasing it (Tagit, 2009). 

3 Change in volume of an antigen-sensitive hydrogel in response to the target antigen. 

A similar approach has been used more recently by Miyata et al (2006) to prepare tumour marker-responsive hydrogels. These polymeric networks, prepared by biomolecular imprinting, were conjugated with lectins and antibodies so that they exhibited volume changes in response to antifreeze glycoprotein (AFP), a glycoprotein which is widely used for the serum diagnosis of primary hepatoma. 

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