Recent Advances in Biosensor Development for Foodborne Virus Detection

Neethirajan, Suresh; Ahmed, Syed Rahin; Chand, Rohit; Buozis, John; Nagy, Éva

Microfluidic technology requires extremely small amount of fluid as microliters or even nanolitres and measures ten to hundreds of micrometres of foods using interconnected networks [37, 38] . Microfluidics has been ongoing in its evolution with microfabrication technology since its invention in the early 1990s. Fluid for testing is transported either passively through capillary forces or actively through pumping to achieve laminar fluid flow. Automated control of all steps can reduce human errors and increase accuracy, reproducibility, and reliability of test results. The opportunities for testing different samples simultaneously make microfluidics a perfect candidate in multiplexing. Two types of microfluidic systems are currently available in foodborne virus detection: micro total analysis system and the paper based analytical system. Micro total analysis system is mostly designed as devices with lab-on-a-chip features [39, 40] . Its advantages are using fluid as a working medium and integrating different functionalities on a scale, which allow complicated molecular techniques to be completed at once, such as immunoassays and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Materials of silicon, glass, and polymers, particularly thermoplastic polymers are most often used in microfluidic devices.