Biosensors are under commercial development for all sorts of applications -detecting human and animal pathogens, measuring clinical markers for heart attack and cancer, and monitoring environmental pollutants. The most effective way to put biosensors into the hands of potential customers, especially those with limited budgets, might be to modify the technology so that it can run on everyday devices, rather than on specialized apparatus. Popular electronic gadgets such as palm-sized computers, flatbed scanners and DVD players could potentially be converted into low-cost, battery-operated, user-friendly biosensors. Reporting in Analytical Chemistry, Li et al. describe a notable advance in this direction: a system for running assays on standard compact discs that uses free CD-quality-analysis software to detect and quantify biological binding events.
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