Design and making a model/prototype of portable fiber-optic biosensors as alternate bio-analytical tools

It is found that there have been an increasing number of fluid-transmittable diseases in recent times. Among the many water related diseases, Cholera, typhoid fever and hepatitis A are three infamous and common examples. Besides water, viruses are also transmitted through blood and body fluids. An example of such virus is the Ebola virus. Although biologists found a vaccine for the Ebola virus which was effective in trial tests, more is required to be done on the detection end. Therefore it is important to invent or create equipment which can aid biologists and medical personnel to detect the presence of antigens in fluids. Biotin-alginate conjugate and sandwich ELISA are the two antigen detection and indication methods for this project. Both methods employ toxin detection and indication via the production of bioluminescence and application of optic fiber respectively. This report presents the design and development of portable bio-pens before a finalized design is fabricated. Experiments were conducted using the bio-pen prototype to prove its workability with the usage of simulated toxins. From the experimental results, the biotin-alginate conjugate bio-pen was able to perform to its desired design, to produce quantitative results to determine the presence of the toxins in fluid sample. However, the sandwich ELISA bio-pen was only conceptually designed. Actual test experiment with the creation of the ELISA bio-pen prototype should be carried out to test the accuracy and effectiveness of this revolutionary design. This report also presents the market survey of other portable biosensors besides optic fiber. CMOS biosensor is one of the portable biosensors available in the market that is included as a side project. It involves the design and fabrication of a portable CMOS sensor model and prototype for a biologist. With the creation of the CMOS sensor prototype, it can be used to make comparative study to determine whether the CMOS sensor can be a cheaper alternative to the fiber-optic biosensor without sacrificing the quality of the results.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering