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Updated: Apr 5, 2026

Nanosensors to Detect Protease Activity In Vivo for Noninvasive Diagnostics
Published on: July 16, 2018
Electrical nanowell diagnostics sensors for rapid and ultrasensitive detection of prostate-specific antigen
Anjan Panneer Selvam1, Shalini Prasad1, Thomas W Barrett2
1Department of Bioengineering, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA.
Aim:
Alumina nanowell based disposable diagnostic biosensor for detecting and quantifying levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) from human serum has been designed, fabricated and tested.
Materials & Methods:
The biosensors were designed by integrating nanoporous alumina membranes onto printed circuit board platforms, resulting in the generation of high-density nanowell arrays with gold base electrodes. The size and density of the nanowells were leveraged toward achieving sieving action for size-based exclusion of nonspecific molecules and size-based confinement of the target PSA molecules.
Results & Conclusion:
We demonstrated PSA detection between 0.01 and 1000 ng/ml and detection and quantification of PSA from a 17 patient cohort validated using the Beckman Access system with >95% correlation.

