SoftSense - Bio/Chemosensors for Soft Robotics

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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.