According to the most recent World Health Organization (WHO) data, cancer is the second
leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 9.6 million deaths in 2018. In particular,
cancer diseases have caused 26% of the total deaths in Portugal in 2016. Among the complex
mechanisms associated to cancer development, Oxidative Stress (OS) seems to play an
important role at the origin of the disease. Thus, early diagnosis of multiple OS biomarkers may
be a fundamental tool in cancer prevention and in more efficient therapeutic strategies.
Despite the development and the research efforts that are being made, accurate and early
detection methods for cancer are still lacking. The demand for specific OS biomarker assays
carried out in wide screening programs in point-of-care (POC) is undoubtedly a difficult but
potentially useful challenge for biomedical research and health. So far, current methods for
cancer diagnosis based upon pathological examination alone are insufficient for detecting early
tumour progression.
Thus, to overcome this need, the present project aims the development of quick, simple and
accurate detection of selected OS biomarkers, collected using minimally invasive methods, in
order to allow rapid and reliable diagnosis at early stages of the disease. Under this scope, the
design of sensitive biosensing materials integrated with novel conductive substrates for POC
screening of OS biomarkers will be presented. In order to achieve a specific and highly selective
bio-chemical recognition process, molecular imprinting strategy was used to create the artificial
recognition sites. During the fabrication of electrochemical transduction platforms, paper was
introduced as a novel alternative to the conventional support materials usually incorporated in
electrode systems.
Overall, it is expected that the outcome of this plan will contribute, in the future, to the
development and application of a multi-analyte platform for simultaneous fast screening of
cancer biomarkers in POC context
