Objective: Impedance based biosensing provides a unique, highly sensitive electrical approach to biomolecule detection, cell growth, and other biological events. To date, an impedance change due to the cell growth has been considered as a solution to detect some changes in a cell’s behavior. The impedance change detection is normally measured via an impedance analyzer which is expensive and also cumbersome. Rapid and definitive diagnosis of viral infections is imperative in patient treatment process. Early detection followed by appropriate lifestyle and treatment may result to a longer, healthier life. Certain patients require continues monitoring that may require regular visits to hospitals which is not practical. Therefore, a continuous home healthcare device is needed to monitor and detect any change in a patient’s health condition. Methods & Results: In this research, a novel sensor and healthcare monitoring system is modeled, simulated, developed, and tested to detect viruses by detecting the change in the impedance due to antibodies and antigens binding. First, COMSOL simulation tool is used to develop a model to prove the concept. The model predicts increasing impedance during functionalization of electrodes with antibodies and after antigen binding steps. Second, to understand how nanoscale electrode size and spacing would affect biosensing assay (antibody-based affinity binding of a protein antigen), a model using COMSOL is developed. Third, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) based signal processing system is developed as well to be connected to analog to digital converter (ADC) to acquire the current and voltage readings of the sensors over time. This healthcare monitoring system is used to continuously monitoring a patient’s condition and reports any changes in the impedance readings which represents virus detection or at least change in the cell’s behavior. Conclusions: The proposed sensor model is simulated, tested and verified via COMSOL and the FPGA prototype is tested and it verified the COMSOL model. This work reports that the proposed sensor can be used to detect viruses via detecting a change in the impedance.

中文翻译：

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使用FPGA进行病毒检测的生物传感器的设计、仿真和开发

客观的：基于阻抗的生物传感为生物分子检测、细胞生长和其他生物事件提供了一种独特的、高度灵敏的电方法。迄今为止，由于细胞生长引起的阻抗变化已被认为是检测细胞行为中某些变化的解决方案。阻抗变化检测通常通过昂贵且笨重的阻抗分析仪进行测量。病毒感染的快速和明确诊断在患者治疗过程中是必不可少的。及早发现，然后采取适当的生活方式和治疗，可能会导致更长寿、更健康的生活。某些患者需要持续监测，这可能需要定期访问医院，这是不切实际的。因此，需要一个连续的家庭保健设备来监测和检测患者健康状况的任何变化。方法和结果：在这项研究中，一种新型传感器和医疗保健监测系统被建模、模拟、开发和测试，通过检测由于抗体和抗原结合引起的阻抗变化来检测病毒。首先，使用 COMSOL 仿真工具开发模型来证明该概念。该模型预测在使用抗体对电极进行功能化期间以及在抗原结合步骤之后增加阻抗。其次，为了了解纳米级电极尺寸和间距如何影响生物传感分析（蛋白质抗原的基于抗体的亲和结合），开发了一个使用 COMSOL 的模型。第三，还开发了基于现场可编程门阵列 (FPGA) 的信号处理系统，以连接到模数转换器 (ADC) 以随时间获取传感器的电流和电压读数。结论：提出的传感器模型通过 COMSOL 进行仿真、测试和验证，并测试了 FPGA 原型并验证了 COMSOL 模型。这项工作报告说，所提出的传感器可用于通过检测阻抗变化来检测病毒。