Electrochemical detection of haemoglobin from red blood cells

Electrochemical detection of haemoglobin from red blood cells

The aim of this research project is to study the electrochemical behaviour of haemoglobin directly from human blood on a microfluidic device, for various scientific and clinical purposes. The direct electron transfer reactions of haemoglobin provide important information regarding the chemical activity within the red blood cell, which is especially crucial for haematological studies. A few diseases of interest include anemia and malaria. A challenge faced, as reported in previous literature, is the poor facilitation of electron transfer between haemoglobin and solid electrodes.

Before system miniaturization may be achieved, the electrochemical sensing platform was first optimized on a macro-scale by screening various carbon nanomaterials. We found that the bare glassy carbon outperformed the the graphenoids for such an application in electrochemical sensing.1 We further demonstrated the possibility of direct electrochemical detection of hemoglobin from red blood cells.2 These findings are exciting and useful for our current work in scaling down the sensing platform to be integrated into a microfluidic device.

toh_haemoglobindetection_02

Cyclic voltammograms obtained in aqueous 50 mM phosphate buffer at pH 3.5 for the electrochemical reduction of red blood cells at GC-Nf-RBC-3Nf electrodes. The calibration curve observed concentration saturation starting at 1.45 mg/mL (50 × 103 cells/μL).2

Chip (board connection) Chip (slide connection) Chip (Clamp)

Carbon and Ag/AgCl electrodes screen-printed onto a glass slide in current work of integrating the electrochemical sensing platform into a microfluidic device.

List of reference papers

  1. R. J. Toh, W. K. Peng, J. Han, and M. Pumera, “Haemoglobin Electrochemical Detection on Various Reduced Graphene Surfaces: Well-defined Glassy Carbon Electrode Outperforms the Graphenoids,” Royal Society of Chemistry Advances, vol. 4, pp. 8050-8054, 2014.
  2. R. J. Toh, W. K. Peng, J. Han, and M. Pumera, “Direct In Vivo Electrochemical Detection of Haemoglobin in Red Blood Cells,” Scientific Reports, vol. 4:6209, pp. 1-6, 2014.

 

Last updated: 18 MAY 2015

Author: Rou Jun Toh