• The Magazine of the IEIE
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.58-72
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• 2004

Smart sensors and biochip technologies have received a great deal of attention in recent years not only because of the enormous potential markets in the healthcare expenditures but more importantly because of its great impact on the quality of human life in the future. Collaborative research among BT (Bio Technologies), IT (Information Technologies) and NT (Nano Technologies) will bring us a new paradigm of the healthcare services. Examples include disease prediction based on the genetic tests, personal medicines, point-of-care analysis, rapid and sensitive infectious disease diagnostics, environmental monitoring for chemical or biological warfares, intelligent drug delivery systems etc. In this report, recent accomplishment in the research area on biosensors, DNA chips, Protein Chips and Lab-on-a-chips are reviewed.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 2014

Aromatic hydrocarbons are toxic environmental pollutants that are detrimental to the ecosystem and human health. Among them, chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene are toxic to hydrobios and irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory organs of humans. We herein report the development of recombinant microbial biosensors for cheap and rapid monitoring of chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene compounds. Plasmids were constructed by inserting the xylR regulatory gene for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) degradation into upstream of Po' (the DmpR activator promoter Po with the deletion of its own upstream activating sequences) or Pu (the cognate promoter of XylR)::lacZ (the ${\beta}$-galactosidase gene) and transformed into Escherichia coli $DH5{\alpha}$. In the presence of inducers, the biosensor cells immobilized in agarose developed a red color in 1-2 h due to the hydrolysis of chlorophenol red ${\beta}$-D-galactopyranoside (CPRG), a substrate of ${\beta}$-galactosidase that was expressed by the inducers. Among BTEX, high responses were specifically observed with o-, m-, p-chlorotoluene ($0.1{\mu}M-100 mM$) and o-, m-, p-nitrotoluene (0.1 mM-100 mM). Po' demonstrated higher responses than those with Pu. The biosensors immobilized in agarose showed good stability after 21 days' storage at $4^{\circ}C$, and responses in untreated wastewater spiked with chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene, suggesting they can be used to detect compounds in wastewater.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.100-105
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• 2008

Biochips are a powerful emerging technology for biomedical, environmental applications. Especially, making use of bioseonors in the evaluation of toxicity becomes increasingly important. For biosensor as a toxicity detection, biomolecules like antibodies or aptamers have been developed to specifically capture the toxic target molecules. In addition, the development of optimal chip materials capable of maintaining the activity of embedded biomolecules such as proteins or aptamers has proven challenging. Here, using sol-gel materials, new chip material, whose ability for immobilizing the embedded aptamers and maintaining the ability of embedded aptamers is optimal, was searched. We used sol-gel formulation screening methods previously developed and found the best formulation which shows high sensitive and specific interactions of aptamers. This study results will support the technological advancement for diagnosis and environmental sensor.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.681-688
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• 2020

Bacterial cell-based biosensors, or whole-cell bioreporters (WCBs), are an alternative tool for the quantification of hazardous materials. Most WCBs share similar working mechanisms. In brief, the recognition of a target by sensing domains induces a biological event, such as changes in protein conformation or gene expression, providing a basis for quantification. WCBs targeting heavy metal(loid)s employ metalloregulators as sensing domains and control the expression of genes in the presence of target metal(loid) ions, but the diversity of targets, specificity, and sensitivity of these WCBs are limited. In this study, we genetically engineered the metal-binding loop (MBL) of ZntR, which controls the znt-operon in Escherichia coli. In the MBL of ZntR, three Cys sites interact with metal ions. Based on the crystal structure of ZntR, MBL sequences were modified by site-directed mutagenesis. As a result, the metal-sensing properties of WCBs differed depending on amino acid sequences and the new selectivity to Cr or Pb was observed. Although there is room for improvement, our results support the use of currently available WCBs as a platform to generate new WCBs to target other environmental pollutants including metal(loid)s.

• Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.21-24
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• 2004

Antibody based biosensors are very selective and ultra-sensitive. Antigen-antibody reactions have been used in immunoassays. In this research, a biosensor which uses antigen-antibody reaction was developed to measure and detect rat IgG. Because the antigen-antibody reaction is a physical bounding between antigen and antibody, there are several ways to measure an antigen-antibody reaction. Among the methods, impedance analysis has short measuring time and possibilities of analyzing various properties of the reaction using frequency analysis. Rat IgG could be detected with developed biosensor and impedance analyzer. The biosensor showed good repeatability and availability of detecting concentration changes of rat IgG.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2020.12a
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• pp.387-396
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• 2020

Wearable biosensors have the potential to non-invasively and continuously monitor seniors' stress in their daily interaction with the urban environment, thereby enabling to address the stress and ultimately advance their outdoor mobility. However, current wearable biosensor-based stress detection methods have several drawbacks in field application due to their dependence on batch-learning algorithms. First, these methods train a single classifier, which might not account for multiple subjects' different physiological reactivity to stress. Second, they require a great deal of computational power to store and reuse all previous data for updating the signle classifier. To address this issue, we tested the feasibility of online multi-task learning (OMTL) algorithms to identify multiple seniors' stress from electrodermal activity (EDA) collected by a wristband-type biosensor in a daily trip setting. As a result, OMTL algorithms showed the higher test accuracy (75.7%, 76.2%, and 71.2%) than a batch-learning algorithm (64.8%). This finding demonstrates that the OMTL algorithms can strengthen the field applicability of the wearable biosensor-based stress detection, thereby contributing to better understanding the seniors' stress in the urban environment and ultimately advancing their mobility.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.311-316
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• 2011

Monitoring the carbon dioxide concentration in arterial blood is vital for the evaluation and prevention of pulmonary disease. Yet, domestic pure arterial blood carbon dioxide sensor technologies are not being developed, instead all sensors are imported. In this paper, we develop a real time monitoring system for arterial blood partial pressure of carbon dioxide($pCO_2$) gas from the wrist by using a carbon micro-heater. The micro-heater was fabricated with a thickness of 0.3 ${\mu}m$ in order to collect the carbon dioxide under the skin. The micro-heater has been designed to perform temperature compensation in order to prevent damage to the skin. Two clinical trials of the system were undertaken. As a result, we demonstrated that a portable, transcutaneous carbon dioxide analysis($TcpCO_2$) device produced domestically is possible. In addition, this system reduced the analysis time significantly. Carbon films could reduce the unit price of these sensors by replacing the gold film used in foreign models. Also, we developed a real time monitoring system which can be used with optical biosensors for medical diagnostics as well as gas sensors for environmental monitoring.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.565-572
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• 2016

While there have been great demands on improving domestic water pollution issues, the necessity for real time monitoring of particular drug residues in water resources has been raised since drug residues including antibiotics could provoke new trains of drug-resistant bacteria in water environments. Among many different types of drugs used for pharmaceutical treatment, antibiotics are considered to be one of the most hazardous to our ecosystem since they can rapidly promote the spreading of drug-resistant bacteria in water environments. In this mini-review, we will highlight recent developments made on creating in-situ sensing platforms for the fast monitoring of antibiotic residues in aquatic environmental samples focusing on optical and electrochemical techniques. Related recent technology developments and the resulting economy effects will also be discussed.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.43-49
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• 2011

The increasing number of analytes in concern and the alarming health and environmental consequences have required effective means of monitoring for safety control. Biosensors offer advantages as alternatives to conventional analytical methods because of their inherent specificity, simplicity, and quick response. Colorimetric biosensor, one of biosensor group, is one of the easiest and the most convenient methods because detection can be done using naked eye. Recently, a novel method for rapid detection and read-out of specific immunoassays with naked eye using polydiacetylene (PDA) was developed. Polydiacetylene has recently been in the limelight as a transducing materials because of its special features that allow optical transduction of sensory signals and inherent simplicity and ease of use in supramolecular chemistry. Various forms of PDA are used as a sensor platform for detection of various biological analytes such as viruses, DNA, proteins, bacteria and hazardous molecules.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.503-508
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• 2016

Biosensors have been used as first-step monitoring tools to detect on-site samples in a simple and cost-effective manner. Numerous recombinant microbial biosensors have been exploited for monitoring on-site toxic chemicals and biological signals. Herein, a recombinant microbial biosensor was constructed for monitoring cadmium. The cadmium responding cadC regulatory gene and it’s promoter from Staphylococcus aureus was amplified through PCR, fused with the lacZ gene, and transformed into Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) cells. In the presence of cadmium, the biosensor cells express β-galactosidase showing red color development with chlorophenol red β-galactopyranoside (CPRG) as the enzymatic substrate. The biosensor cells showed the best β-galactosidase activity after 3 hr induction with cadmium at pH 5 and a detection range from 0.01 μM to 10 mM cadmium with a linearity from 0.01 to 0.1 μM cadmium (y = 0.98 x + 0.142, R² = 0.98). Among the heavy metals, cadmium and lead showed good responses, tin and cobalt showed medium responses, and mercury and copper showed no responses. The biosensor cells showed good responses to several waste waters similar to buffer solution, all spiked with cadmium. The biosensor described herein could be applied for on-site cadmium monitoring in a simple and cost-effective manner without sample pretreatments.