IMX Seminar Series - Ultimately sensitive organic bioelectronic transistor sensors

Organic bioelectronic sensors are gaining momentum as they can combine high performance sensing level with flexible large-area processable materials. This opens to potentially highly performing biomarkers sensing systems for point-of-care health monitoring at low-cost. Prominent to detect biochemical recognition events are the Electrolyte-Gated Organic Field-Effect Transistors that have been recently shown capable of label-free single-molecule detections, even in blood serum.
Indeed, Label-free single-molecule detection has been achieved so far by funneling a large number of analyte molecules into a sequence of single-binding events with few recognition elements host on nanometric transducers. Such approaches are inherently unable to sense a cue in a bulk milieu. Conceptualizing cells’ ability to sense at the physical limit by means of a transducing interface comprising highly-packed recognition elements, a millimetric sized electrolyte-gated field-effect-transistor is used to detect a single molecule. To this end, the gate is bio-functionalized with a self-assembled-monolayer of trillions of capturing antibodies, endowed with a hydrogen-bonding network enabling cooperative-interactions. The selective and label-free single-molecule detection is strikingly demonstrated in diluted saliva while few tens of antigens are assayed in whole serum. The suggested sensing mechanism triggered by the affinity binding event, involves a work-function change that is assumed to propagate in the gating-field through the electrostatic hydrogen-bonding network. The proposed immunoassay platform is general and can revolutionize the current approach to protein detection.
Bio: Luisa Torsi received her PhD from the University of Bari and was post-doctoral fellow at Bell Labs and invited professor at the University of Anger and Paris 7. In 2005 she was appointed full professor of chemistry at the University of Bari and since 2017 she is adjunct professor at the Abo Academy University in Finland. In 2010 she was awarded with the Heinrich Emanuel Merck prize for analytical sciences, this marking the first time the award is given to a woman. Recent main awards are also the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry 2019 Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering prize and the analytical chemistry division of the European Chemical Society Robert Kellner Lecturer 2019. She has been also elected 2017 Fellow of the Material Research Society, for pioneering work in the field of organic (bio) electronic sensors and their use for point-of-care testing.
In 2014 she has been appointed as member of the H2020 Program Committee by the Italian Minister for Education and Research and is still serving in this role. She is also the immediate past president of the European Material Research Society being the first women to serve on this role.
Awarded research funding for over 26 million euros in thirteen years, comprises several European contracts as well as national and regional projects. She is presently coordinating the SiMBiT project a H2020-ICT-2018-2020 research and innovation action. Torsi is also coordinating a PRIN-17 national project (“ACTUAL” 2017RHX2E4).
She has authored almost 200 ISI papers, including papers published in Science, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, PNAS, Advanced Materials, Scientific Reports and is co-inventor of several international awarded patents. Her works gathered almost 11.100 Google scholar citations resulting in an h-index of 50. She has given more than 170 invited lectures, including almost 25 plenary and key notes contributions to international conferences.