Draw-your-own electrodes speed up microdetection

A new rapid prototyping method could speed up development of microdetection devices for sensing biological molecules.

The method, developed by researchers at Imperial College London, allows intricate electrode patterns to be printed in community labs and hackspaces on a laser-cutting printer. The cavities can then be filled with metal using microfluidic techniques.

Lead researcher Dr Ali Salehi-Reyhani from Imperial’s Department of Chemistry said: “With our method, researchers and startups can more easily design and develop analytical devices, even when they need electronics that can’t be bought off-the-shelf.

“Community hackspaces are great for democratising science, allowing more people to try out new technology solutions. We hope this method will allow bioelectronics to benefit from that ecosystem of hackers getting hands-on with problems and solutions in healthcare.”

The method would allow scientists a more cost-effective way to print several sheets of different electrode designs for testing, while reducing the process from weeks or months to a matter of days.

A team at fabriCELL, a centre of excellence in artificial cell science run by Imperial College London and King’s College London, are using the technique to prototype devices for manipulating and analysing cells.

The technique could also be used to speed up development of flexible wearable devices, as well as devices used in hospitals that can quickly distinguish between viral and bacterial infections from a drop of blood.

Details of Imperial’s prototyping method are published in Scientific Reports.