Aptamer Development for Cancer Diagnostic

Abstract

Analytical platforms and sensing tools enabling the timely and onsite detection of antigens have shown to be one of the most potent weapons (together with the vaccination campaigns) in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the ability to detect and identify the virus through affordable and cost-effective devices has allowed for enormously expanding the diagnostic capacity of the various Health systems, with the consequent setting of timely intervention and ultimately the effective control of infection transmission and spreading. Along with the emergency, the awareness of the importance of diagnostics, and the research in the field of antigen detection, has been dramatically boosted, resulting in an impressive leap of improvement over the state-of-the-art. Notwithstanding, the lack of standardization of protocols and validation of methods has become evident and has brought out the necessity of accurately evaluating the testing performance. An antigen is defined as a compound (typically but not necessarily a protein) able to bind to an antibody. Typically, antigens are structural components of pathogens, and their detection enables the direct and specific identification of the pathogen itself. Therefore, the natural application of antigen detection is the diagnosis of infectious diseases, both in clinical and veterinary diagnostics. However, rapid antigen testing encompasses numerous sectors of application, i.e., food safety assessment and forensic analysis. Starting from the systems to produce recombinant antigens and the study of their immunogenicity, through the generation of biological and synthetic ligands, to the design of new sensing platforms and the incorporation of different detection strategies (such as but not limited to, SERS, magnetic, fluorescence, etc.), the design and fabrication of analytical devices for antigen detection has been largely improved. In addition, non-traditional biological fluids and tissues have been considered, further expanding their applicability. It is expected that beneficial effects will spread to other sectors where sensitive and specific antigen detection represents an added value. The book will cover all aspects of rapid antigen testing, including the design and development of new sensing strategies, the production of new materials and the investigation of their properties, the improvement in the detection and the generation of results (also encompassing data analysis, storage, and connectivity from remote to centralized laboratories), the standardization of protocols and validation of results, the applications to other fields beyond clinical and veterinary diagnostics. BT - Rapid Antigen Testing