Batsheva de Rothschild Seminar on New Concepts in Biosensing

Biosensor
A device that uses specific biochemical reactions mediated by isolated enzymes, immunosystems, tissues, organelles or whole cells to detect chemical compounds usually by electrical, thermal or optical signals*

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A search for a definition of the term “biosensor” brings up diverse permutations of the same concept: the integration of a biological sensing entity into a hardware platform, in a manner that provides biologically relevant information regarding the tested sample. By definition, therefore, biosensor research is highly interdisciplinary: from the technological aspects, it is a meeting place for biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers and computer scientists; from the application side, the field is joined by medical researchers and practitioners, process chemists, environmental scientists, ecologists, earth- and atmospheric- scientists and more.

Each biosensor, regardless of its eventual application, is a combination of several linked components: the biological recognition element, the signal transduction entity that translates a biological/biochemical event into a readable physical signal, and a device for reading and quantifying the signal, along with its electronic components. Some of these interactions (for example, antibody-antigen or enzyme-substrate recognition) have been a subject of intensive basic research over many decades, whereas others (such as the use of nanoparticles as either carriers or reporters) represent very recent revolutions that are continuously being developed and innovated.

The Batsheva de Rothschild Seminar on “New Concepts in Biosensing” aims not only to provide an updated overview of the state of the art in biosensor research, but also offer an informal atmosphere in which students, postdocs and young researchers will be able to interact with leading scientists from Israel and abroad.

 

 

 

* IUPAC, 1997. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, UK