Episode 21: Organic electrochemical transistor device assesses presence of antibodies

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Stephen Riffle interviews Alessandra Scagliarini, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Bologna, and Beatrice Fraboni, a professor of physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Bologna, about their electrical transistor assay that quantifies SARS-CoV-2 for antibodies. The purpose is to determine vaccine efficacy over time. The device is built with the semiconducting material poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS). The material not only transfers ion signals into electronic signals, but also amplifies it. Without neutralizing antibodies, the virus attacks the cells, causing both macro cracks as well as minor disruptions in the tight junctions of the cells, which the high sensitivity of this device is able to detect. This kind of data is an indirect way to assess whether patient samples have neutralizing antibodies. This work was published in a recent issue of Communications Materials (doi:10.1038/s43246-022-00226-6).