SoftSense - Bio/Chemosensors for Soft Robotics

SoftSense旨在开发生物/化学传感器平台，以与软机器人技术对接。主要目的是强调这种传感器在农业食品安全应用中的概念验证示范的潜力和适用性。传统的生物传感和化学传感依赖于缓冲溶液和液体基质中的检测来量化目标分析物的浓度/量。这种依赖性导致通常冗长的样品制备步骤和真实的样品中不同的校准曲线。软机器人通常处理固体物质，因此，软机器人集成生物/化学传感器应适用于快速干相检测的目标分析物。干相生物/化学传感是非常具有挑战性的，因为固体表面更难量化分析物的浓度/量，并且大多数识别元件在水介质中起作用。在SoftSense中，我们的目标是开发与快速电化学生物/化学传感和软机器人相兼容的分析物特异性水凝胶，用于筛选农产品中的选定农药和真菌毒素。我们将利用单链DNA（ssDNA）适体来实现靶特异性。ssDNA适体是合成单链DNA的短核苷酸序列，在体外对靶分析物具有高亲和力和选择性。它们可以通过固相化学反应批量合成，并在化学上进行定制，以具有标记、抗核酸酶活性和长期稳定性。我们将利用电化学生物/化学传感方法来实现选定的分析物的快速检测。

SoftSense aims to develop bio/chemosensor platform to interface with soft robotics. The main objective is to underline the potentialand applicability of such sensors in proof-of-concept demonstrations in agricultural food security applications. The expected impactof SoftSense is the diversification of the potential of soft robotics and paving the way for the commercialization of these technologies.Conventional biosensing and chemical sensing rely on the detection in buffer solutions and liquid matrices to quantify theconcentration/amount of target analytes. This reliance results in often lengthy sample preparation steps and varied calibration curvesin real samples. Soft robotics most commonly deal with solid matter; accordingly, the soft-robot integrated bio/chemosensors shouldapply to rapid dry-phase detection of target analytes. The dry-phase bio/chemosensing is highly challenging as the solid surfaces areharder to quantify the concentration/amount of the analyte, and most of the recognition elements function in aqueous media.In SoftSense, we aimed to develop analyte-specific hydrogels compatible with rapid electrochemical bio/chemosensing and softrobotics in the screening of agricultural produce for selected pesticides and mycotoxins. We will utilize single-stranded DNA (ssDNA)aptamers to achieve the target specificity. ssDNA aptamers are short nucleotide sequences of synthetic single-stranded DNA selectedin vitro toward target analytes with high affinity and selectivity. They can be synthesized by solid-phase chemical reactions in bulkand tailored chemically to have labels, resistance to nuclease activity, and long-term stability. We will utilize electrochemical bio/chemosensing methods to achieve the rapid detection of selected analytes.