Utilization of Dialysis Membrane for Biosensor Applications by UV Spectrophotometric Detection

Investigating novel applications of conventional media for biosensor applications resides prospective developments in health-care services.  As an example, colorimetric test strips are widely renowned tools utilizing rather simple measurement media and detection principles.  Similarly, optically transparent media can be used as cheap, consumable, readily available, small sample and technical expertise requiring materials that can be combined with basic detection principles, which are applying spectrophotometric measurements, as essential methods of many laboratories.  For this purpose, cellulose dialysis tubing (dialysis membrane) is investigated for measurements of dry biological sample spots with UV spectroscopy, with the bovine serum albumin protein as the sample of interest.  Dialysis membranes are among the common media in biological research and biosensor applications, but they have not been studied up to now as the chief medium for sample adsorption or immobilization, for the following detection.  Hence this ongoing research focuses on exploring the feasibility of dialysis membrane as a novel platform for biological testing, by determining the peaks, peak positions, and peak shifts, with respect to the pure protein measurements in solution, along with estimating the optimal sample spot dimensions, for improving the results and reproducibility.  Also, the approach is promising to be developed as a point-of-care diagnosis tool since the necessary instruments of the proposed biosensor are appreciably miniaturized and can be listed among the mobile phone utilities in the future.