A Bioelectronic Hand-Held Spectrophotometer for Biospecimen Analysis for Global Health Applications

Abstract

Patients suffering with bacterial infections are commonly prescribed antibiotic drugs for a certain period until their treatment is complete. Utilizing patient’s bio fluid samples (e.g., blood or urine), we can quantify the antibiotic levels to understand its effective absorption. Laboratory spectrophotometer is normally used as a gold standard instrument to perform such analysis by measuring light absorption through a sample solution in real-time. Here, we have developed a 3D printed Point-of-Care (POC) device that can be used to detect the concentration of proteins in biological samples. We quantified Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) concentration using a Bradford protein assay to test the 3D printed device efficacy against an instrument spectrophotometer and obtained a correlation co-efficient of R2 = 0.989 between the two methods. Our results show the potential of our 3D printed spectrophotometer to quantify other proteins and specific antibiotics (e.g., Rifampin for Tuberculosis management) to monitor and manage patients' treatment.