A novel electrochemical sensor for non-invasive monitoring of lithium levels in mood disorders.

Lithium is the main drug for the treatment of mood disorders. Due to its narrow therapeutic window, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) is a norm during therapy in order to avoid adverse effects. Consequently, patients are obliged to frequent check-ups in hospitals to determine their serum concentration and optimize accordingly the drug dose. Wearable sensors have attracted a growing interest in the research community in recent years owing to their promising impact in personalized healthcare. In particular, sweat diagnosis has seen an enormous expansion and is currently entering the market thanks to the large availability and simple collection of this fluid. In this paper a novel approach for non-invasive decentralized monitoring of lithium drug concentration through sweat analysis is proposed for the first time. An all-solid-state Ion- Selective Electrode (ISE) with a nanostructured Solid-Contact (SC) is used to detect lithium ions in sweat. The sensor offers near-Nernstian behaviour (57:6±2:1 mV/decade) in the concentration range of interest. In addition, it shows fast response (15-30 s), good reversibility and small potential drift over time. A wide pH stability window (pH 4-12) is also proved.

Nanosized optoelectronic devices based on photoactivated proteins.

Molecular nanoelectronics is attracting much attention, because of the possibility to add functionalities to silicon-based electronics by means of intrinsically nanoscale biological or organic materials. The contact point between active molecules and electrodes must present, besides nanoscale size, a very low resistance. To realize Metal-Molecule-Metal junctions it is, thus, mandatory to be able to control the formation of useful nanometric contacts. The distance between the electrodes has to be of the same size of the molecule being put in between. Nanogaps technology is a perfect fit to fulfill this requirement. In this work, nanogaps between gold electrodes have been used to develop optoelectronic devices based on photoactive proteins. Reaction Centers (RC) and Bacteriorhodopsin (BR) have been inserted in nanogaps by drop casting. Electrical characterizations of the obtained structures were performed. It has been demonstrated that these nanodevices working principle is based on charge separation and photovoltage response. The former is induced by the application of a proper voltage on the RC, while the latter comes from the activation of BR by light of appropriate wavelengths.