Adeline Huiling Loo

Carboxylic Carbon Quantum Dots as a Fluorescent Sensing Platform for DNA Detection

The demand for simple, sensitive, affordable, and selective DNA biosensors is ubiquitous, due to the important role that DNA detection performs in the areas of disease diagnostics, environment monitoring, and food safety. A novel application of carboxylic carbon quantum dots (cCQD) is highlighted in this study. Herein, cCQD function as a nanoquencher in the detection of nucleic acid based on a homogeneous fluorescent assay. To that purpose, the performance of two types of cCQD, namely, citric acid QD and malic acid QD, is evaluated. The principle behind the sensing of nucleic acid lies in the different propensity of single-stranded DNA and double-stranded DNA to adsorb onto the surface of cCQD. For both types of cCQD, a superior range of detection of at least 3 orders of magnitude is achieved, and the potential to distinguish single-base mismatch is also exhibited. These findings are anticipated to provide valuable insights on the employment of cCQD for the fabrication of future DNA biosensors.

Thiofluorographene–Hydrophilic Graphene Derivative with Semiconducting and Genosensing Properties

We present the first example of covalent chemistry on fluorographene, enabling the attachment of -SH groups through nucleophilic substitution of fluorine in a polar solvent. The resulting thiographene-like, 2D derivative is hydrophilic with semiconducting properties and bandgap between 1 and 2 eV depending on F/SH ratio. Thiofluorographene is applied in DNA biosensing by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

Thrombin aptasensing with inherently electroactive graphene oxide nanoplatelets as labels.

Graphene and its associated materials are commonly used as the transducing platform in biosensing. We propose a different approach for the application of graphene in biosensing. Here, we utilized graphene oxide nanoplatelets as the inherently electroactive labels for the aptasensing of thrombin. The basis of detection lies in the ability of graphene oxide to be electrochemically reduced, thereby providing a well-defined reduction wave; one graphene oxide nanoplatelet of dimension 50 × 50 nm can provide a reduction signal by accepting ~22,000 electrons. We demonstrate that by using graphene oxide nanoplatelets as an inherently electroactive label, we can detect thrombin in the concentration range of 3 pM-0.3 μM, with good selectivity of the aptamer towards interferences by bovine serum albumin, immunoglobulin G and avidin. Therefore, the inherently electroactive graphene oxide nanoplatelets are a material which can serve as an electroactive label, in a manner similar to metallic nanoparticles.

Biorecognition on Graphene: Physical, Covalent, and Affinity Immobilization Methods Exhibiting Dramatic Differences

The preparation of biorecognition layers on the surface of a sensing platform is a very crucial step for the development of sensitive and selective biosensors. Different protocols have been used thus far for the immobilization of biomolecules onto various electrode surfaces. In this work, we investigate how the protocol followed for the immobilization of a DNA aptamer affects the performance of the fabricated thrombin aptasensor. Specifically, the differences in selectivity and optimum amount of immobilized aptamer of the fabricated aptasensors adopting either physical, covalent, or affinity immobilization were compared. It was discovered that while all three methods of immobilization uniformly show a similar optimum amount of immobilized aptamer, physical, and covalent immobilization methods exhibit higher selectivity than affinity immobilization. Hence, it is believed that our findings are very important in order to optimize and improve the performance of graphene-based aptasensors.

Top‐Down and Bottom‐Up Approaches in Engineering 1 T Phase Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2): Towards Highly Catalytically Active Materials

The metallic 1 T phase of MoS2 has been widely identified to be responsible for the improved performances of MoS2 in applications including hydrogen evolution reactions and electrochemical supercapacitors. To this aim, various synthetic methods have been reported to obtain 1 T phase-rich MoS2 . Here, the aim is to evaluate the efficiencies of the bottom-up (hydrothermal reaction) and top-down (chemical exfoliation) approaches in producing 1 T phase MoS2 . It is established in this study that the 1 T phase MoS2 produced through the bottom-up approach contains a high proportion of 1 T phase and demonstrates excellent electrochemical and electrical properties. Its performance in the hydrogen evolution reaction and electrochemical supercapacitors also surpassed that of 1 T phase MoS2 produced through a top-down approach.

Nanostructured MoS2 Nanorose/Graphene Nanoplatelet Hybrids for Electrocatalysis.

Tailoring and enhancing electrocatalytic activity is of the utmost importance from the viewpoints of sustainable energy and sensing. MoS2 and graphene show great promise for the electrocatalysis of many reactions. Given that both graphene and MoS2 are highly anisotropic in nature, with edge planes that are several orders of magnitude more catalytically active than basal planes, a new hybrid material with maximized edge-plane density to provide efficient electron transfer, high catalytic activity, and conductive cores was engineered. The hybrid material consists of radial MoS2 nanosheets with a high density of edge planes and unsaturated active sulfur atoms as well as interspersed with conductive graphene nanoplatelets. This hybrid material exhibits excellent activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction and the detection of DNA nucleobases. Such a nanoengineered, nanostructured hybrid material may play a major role in future electrocatalytic devices.

CVD graphene based immunosensor

Graphene synthesis by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method has been receiving much attention from researchers. This is due to the fact that high quality graphene can be obtained at relatively low production costs. While there has been much advancement in CVD synthesis of graphene, little study has been done on the biosensing applications of CVD graphene. Herein, we aim to draw attention to employing CVD grown graphene as a potential platform for immunosensing of IgG. Using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), we obtained a sensitive detection of rabbit IgG in the range of 0.1–100 μg ml−1 with untreated CVD graphene as the electrode interface for direct immobilization of the recognition antibodies. From our report, it can be concluded that CVD grown graphene exhibits great potential to be utilized as a platform for immunosensing applications.

Transitional Metal/Chalcogen Dependant Interactions of Hairpin DNA with Transition Metal Dichalcogenides, MX2

Owing to the attractive properties that transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) display, they have found recent application in the fabrication of biosensing devices. These devices involve the immobilization of a recognition element such as DNA onto the surface of TMDs. Therefore, it is imperative to examine the interactions between TMDs and DNA. Herein, we explore the effect of different transition metals (Mo and W) and chalcogens (S and Se) on the interactions between hairpin DNA and TMDs of both bulk and t-BuLi exfoliated forms. We discovered that the interactions are strongly dependent on the metal/chalcogen composition in TMDs.