New biosensor powers itself, detects and kills bacteria to make water safe

The biosensor uses an enzyme-based biofuel cell, antibodies called aptamers and a bacterial elimination mechanism to make water decontamination faster and easier.

Originally published by Christopher McFadden at https://interestingengineering.com on Mar 02, 2025



        Stock image of a biosensor.                                        grechina/iStock

A team of researchers has developed a new self-powered biosensor that can detect Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria in drinking water and destroy them in situ (on site). This discovery could have enormous ramifications for providing safe drinking water worldwide.

Traditional methods, such as culturing or polymerase chain reaction (PCR), are time-consuming and labor-intensive. They also require specialized equipment and trained staff.

Biosensors (devices that use living organisms or biological molecules) are faster, but tend to need external power sources to function. They also have the irksome tendency to degrade over time. The new sensor, however, addresses many of these issues by deploying three main components to generate its own energy.

Three components

The first, an enzymatic biofuel cell (EBFC), provides power for the sensor by using enzymes to generate electricity from biochemical reactions. It uses glucose oxidase (GOx) to break down glucose, producing electrons (electricity) and hydrogen peroxide. However, this enzyme loses stability over time.

Read more

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First map of every neuron in an adult brain has been produced for a fruit fly

Image
Originally published by UK Research and Innovation on October 2, 2024   3D rendering of all ~140k neurons in the fruit fly brain. Credit: Data source: FlyWire.ai; Rendering by Philipp Schlegel (University of Cambridge/MRC LMB). The first wiring diagram of every neuron in an adult brain and the 50 million connections between them has been produced for a fruit fly . This landmark achievement has been conducted by a large international collaboration of scientists , called the FlyWire Consortium , including researchers from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology ( in Cambridge, UK ), Princeton University, the University of Vermont and the University of Cambridge . It is published in a pair of papers in Nature . The diagram of all 139,255 neurons in the adult fly brain is the first of an entire brain for an animal that can walk and see . Previous efforts have completed the whole brain diagrams for much smaller brains , for example, for that of a fruit fly larva, whi...
Read more

Engineered Rabies Virus Illuminates Neural Circuitry

Image
Originally published by Hannah Thomasy, PhD, for the Scientist on June 14, 2024 Scientists turned a deadly virus into a crucial tool for understanding the wiring of the brain.   Rabies labeling helps scientists identify neurons in the primary visual cortex that connect to two different higher visual brain regions. Marina Garrett  In 1906 , pathologist Camillo Golgi and neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize for their work on the structure of the nervous system . More than a century later, the puzzle of nervous system organization —the intricately tangled mess that results from each neuron’s connections to thousands of others— remains incomplete . Yet, fully developing scientific understanding of these connections is crucial , said Edward Callaway , a systems neurobiologist at the Salk Institute . “If you don’t have some knowledge about how the different parts are interacting , there’s no way to generate a hypothesis about how they’re working toget...
Read more

An antibiotic effective against anthrax that has no detectable resistance, Northeastern research finds

Image
Originally published by Cyrus Moulton at Northeastern Global News on March 14, 2025 A doctoral student extracts antibiotics compound from bacterial cell extracts in a lab which contributed to the discovery of teixobactin. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University The antibiotic teixobactin — developed a decade ago by Northeastern University professors Kim Lewis and Slava Epstein in collaboration with university startup NovoBiotic — has already proven itself against MRSA and pneumonia . Now, anthrax can be added to the list , according to new research published in the journal ACS Infectious Diseases . “This is the first realistic countermeasure against an engineered bioweapon , since there is no resistance to the drug,” says Lewis, university distinguished professor and director of the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern.  Teixobactin is unique as an antibiotic that has shown no detectable resistance .  The drug comes from an uncultured so...
Read more