A biosensing system with single-molecule sensitivity

November 30, 2023

Enrico Genco defended his PhD thesis at the Department of Electrical Engineering on November 24th.

Image: iStockPhoto

Single-molecule level analysis is the future frontier in precision healthcare. Bioelectronic systems recently attracted great interest due to their exceptional sensitivity for protein biomarkers detection in physiological environments. For his PhD research, Enrico Genco explored the development of a 96-biosensing elements prototype with enhanced sensing capabilities and made of novel materials.

The biochemistry assay system developed by Enrico Genco is based on a matrix of Electrolyte-Gated Organic Field Effect Transistor (EGOFET) sensors, flexible addressing logic, and a high-accuracy Si Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) providing front-end and data conversion functions.

Time Domain Multiplexing (TDM) is used to reduce the number of lines needed to read the sensors output currents. A current sensitive front-end with a dynamic range of more than 120dB is achieved with a 12bit oversampled ADC and a programmable gain transimpedance amplifier, enabling the detection of proteins down to the single molecule concentration level.

The proposed solution leads to a low-cost and extreme sensitivity system, successfully integrating devices made with three different technologies and materials.

These results pave the way for the development of complex systems based on a matrix of bio-electronic sensors and a miniaturized Si IC chip for data processing.

Title of PhD thesis: A Biosensing System Exploiting Hybrid Integration of EGOFET, OTFT and CMOS Technologies Achieving Single-molecule Sensitivity. Supervisors: Eugenio Cantatore, Pieter Harpe, and Marco Fattori.