Development of electronic instrumentation for a microfluidic microRNA biosensor

microRNAs are a type of nucleic acid with the potential of biomarkers. In fact, their dysregulation in the blood of a patient is the signal of the presence of inflammations, cancers or other diseases. However, it is still an open challenge to develop a device detecting the microRNAs in a rapid, cheap and portable way, by overcoming the limitations of the traditional techniques. In this Master Thesis I present the technological improvements of the microRNA biosensor developed at the at C2N (Centre des Nanosciences et Nanotechnologies, Palaiseau, France) in the Department of Microsystems and Nanobiofluidics. The biosensor is a so-called Lab on a chip device, and its aim is to concentrate, detect and quantify the microRNA from the sample of a patient. These steps are accomplished by the use of magnetic nanoparticles to isolate and filter the type of microRNA under detection and finally it is quantified by electrochemical detection. In this thesis I report the development and the optimization work done to realize the electronics instrumentation that makes the whole protocol working. Finally, the validity of the protocol, in particular the microRNA quantification, is proved in the experiments held. In fact, thanks to the electrochemical detection it will be possible to discriminate between different concentrations of circulating microRNA (miRNA122) from a sample.