Development of Nucleic Acid Sensing Strategies for Point-of-Care Pathogen Identification

Point-of care (POC) diagnostic methods provide pathogen identification at the initial site of patient contact with healthcare. Technological development has focused on bringing molecular techniques to the POC but this has not yet been achieved commercially. An abundance of molecular techniques exists for manipulating and amplifying nucleic acids from samples however, development of appropriate techniques for sensing nucleic acid products is a challenge. The works within this dissertation aim to develop sequence specific nucleic acid sensing tools that are compatible with POC applications. The described sensors are entirely DNA-based, taking advantage of a G-DNAzyme signal transduction element to produce electrochemical and colorimetric readouts for detection with microchip sensors and smartphone-based imaging.