Abstract
The spread of drug-resistant bacteria represents a growing worldwide health problem. The most efficient way to fight drug-resistant bacteria is to detect their colonies, identify their type, monitor their growth, and destroy them before they reach the human body. A gravimetric biomedical micro-electro-mechanical sensor (BioMEMS) system operating in the pico-gram range (10−12 g/cm2) has been proposed for detecting growth of drug-resistant bacterial colonies. The sensor is based on a MEMS metal-coated thin piezoelectric membrane resonator. A combination of shear horizontal surface acoustic (SHSAW), Bleustein-Gulyaev, skimming and ‘leaky’ waves, generated in the resonator, are highly sensitive to mass, density, viscoelastic, and electrochemical changes at the resonator/bacteria interface. Measuring resonant frequency shifts of the composite resonator provides information about the mass and type of the bacterium colony growing on the resonator.
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Notes
Q-factor is a measure of the rate at which a vibrating system dissipates its energy. A lower Q indicates a higher rate of energy dissipation.
S-parameters, or scattering parameters, are a set of parameters describing the scattering and reflection of traveling waves when a network is inserted into the resonator’s transmission line. S-parameters are normally measured as a function of frequency. S-parameters can be considered as the gain of the network and the subscripts denote the port numbers. The ratio of the output of port 2 to the incident wave on port 1 is designated S21.
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No sources of funding were used to assist in the preparation of this review. The author has no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this review.
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Ivanov, D. BioMEMS Sensor Systems for Bacterial Infection Detection. BioDrugs 20, 351–356 (2006). https://doi.org/10.2165/00063030-200620060-00005
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2165/00063030-200620060-00005