Biosensor Performance Parameters and their Enhancement

The areas of biosensor application are increasing continuously and biosensor research is gradually becoming an established area of widespread usage. One aspect of biosensor application that needs careful study is the enhancement of biosensor performance parameters. Quite often, researchers especially in the academic arena are content with developing a biosensor for a novel application. Little interest and few resources are expended on the ways and means of improving biosensor performance parameters such as sensitivity, reproducibility, validation, enhanced response, stability, improvement in resolution, detection time, limit of detection, etc. The industrial sector, which is under constant pressure due to intense competition to improve biosensor performance parameters is particularly interested in this area of biosensor development. One recognizes that if modifications are made for the biosensor to enhance a particular performance parameter, then it is quite possible that another biosensor parameter may exhibit a decrease in its performance characteristic. For example, if one enhances the sensitivity of a biosensor by some type of modification, then perhaps it is quite possible that after this modification, the biosensor may exhibit a decrease in its stability characteristic. It would be useful to relate the biosensor performance parameter(s) to a common variable, such as the degree of heterogeneity or fractal dimension of the biosensor surface. Then, by changing the degree of heterogeneity to help improve a particular biosensor performance parameter, one does have a priori an estimate of the influence of this change in heterogeneity on other biosensor performance parameters. However, practical experience as against the theoretical exploration in the biosensor R&D field is irreplaceable as far as improving biosensor performance parameters are concerned.