C. Raman Suri

The precise and rapid diagnosis of malaria is key to prevent indiscriminate use of antimalarial drugs and help in timely treatment and management of the disease. This paper reports a label-free detection of P. falciparum infected red blood cells using a gold nanoparticle (GNP) enhanced platform. The GNPs were electrodeposited on screen-printed electrodes to form a well-controlled matrix that served the dual role of antibody immobilization and signal enhancement. The detection of infected red blood cells was carried out by measuring changes in electrical parameters as a result of its binding to cell reactive antibodies immobilized on the electrode. The assay showed good sensitivity and a linear response between the electron transfer resistance and the logarithm of the number of infected red blood cells which was observed over a concentration range of 10² cells per mL to 10⁸ cells per mL. This is the first report where an antibody-functionalized electrochemical biosensing platform has been employed for the quantitative detection of P. falciparum infected whole red blood cells.

CdTe QD based stripping voltammetry for Vi capsular polysaccharide detection. The technique has provided an insight into the competence of CdTe QD and GNP immuno-conjugates. This is a novel approach to characterize the efficiency of immuno-conjugates of QDs and GNPs.

Specific immune detection of glycated hemoglobin is still a great challenge owing to the small epitopic difference between Hemoglobin (Hb) and HbA1c. We report a new electrochemical immunoassay format for point of care testing of HbA1c. A conducting self‐assembled monolayer of mercaptophenyl boronic acid (MPBA) was used as a capture layer for binding of glycated proteins and ferrocene tagged anti‐HbA1c antibody (FcAb) as a tracer molecule on a gold screen printed electrode. Validation of the new HbA1c assay was carried out using 6 clinical samples with known HPLC values and a correlation coefficient of 98 % was observed.

Specific nucleic acid aptamers using the microtiter plate based modified SELEX method against explosive trinitrotoluene are reported. Efficient partitioning of dsDNA was carried out using streptavidin labeled gold nanoprobes for the selection of specific aptamers. The selected binders having an affinity of ∼10⁻⁷ M were used in the newly developed electrochemical aptasensor, exhibiting a detection limit of around 1 ppb for trinitrotoluene.