System-on-Board Integrated Flexible OEGFET Aptasensor for Saliva Testing of Cortisol

The need for oral health monitoring Point of Care (PoC) systems is ever growing. We have recently reported a novel aptamer-based flexible biosensor for detection of a high impact hormone, cortisol, in saliva samples using organic electrolyte gated FET (OEGFET) technology. In this work, we are reporting a first stage system-level integration of this aptasensor which was previously reliant on a bench-top measurement set-up. The reported flexible OEGFET aptasensor has integrated soft microfluidics and a customized, low power (<300mW) printed circuit board. The integrated aptasensor was assessed using spiked saliva supernatant samples which established comparable detection threshold for the miniaturized board-based configuration. The system-on-board integration effort confirms the ability to characterize, calibrate and operate our small footprint biosensor without the need for a lab-based test setup. The portable oral biosensor has potential to be transformed into a multianalyte sensing platform, and it is therefore presented as promising prototype for future clinical validation.