Abstract

Vancomycin and gentamicin are antibiotics widely used for the prophylaxis and treatment of severe infections with Gram-positive and negative bacteria, respectively, but their use can lead to ototoxicity, nephrotoxicity and bacterial resistance to antibiotics, needing a therapeutic drug monitoring of these antibiotics that maximizes efficacy, reduces toxicity and avoids the under-dosing, reducing the antibiotic resistance.

The main purpose of the project consists in facilitating the monitoring of vancomycin and gentamicin treatments, by their electrochemical detection from biological samples (serum, urine), in order to help the proper use of these antibiotics, diminishing their toxicitiy and impairing the development of antibiotics resistance.

The project objectives are to develop a global strategy for obtaining portable, inexpensive, non-toxic, electrochemical (bio)sensors, able to selectively detect low concentrations of vancomycin and gentamicin (ng/L), to adapt these (bio)sensors for simultaneous detection of the two antibiotics and for the routinely monitoring of vancomycin and gentamicin treatments, replacing the chromatographic, spectrophotometric and immunochemical methods, that are expensive, time-consuming and inadaptable for bedside testing.

The objectives will be achieved by three interconnected strategies: the direct electrochemical detection of vancomycin and gentamicin, taking into account that both of them present electroactive functional groups, the modification of the electrodes with nanomaterials and polymeric films, leading to better electrochemical properties, with an increase of the sensitivity of the analysis and the development of selective biosensors using as biorecognition elements antibodies or peptides, capable to interact specifically with the target molecules. Different electrode modification strategies will be tested, increasing the chances of successful development of highly selective and sensitive electrochemical (bio)sensor.