Research Projects

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer of female reproductive system. It is a sexually transmitted disease caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). According to World Health Organization, approximately 660,000 new cases were reported in 2022 (WHO, 2024). The situation is more alarming in developing countries where 94% of the 350,000 deaths caused by cervical cancer. Moreover, it is estimated that over 80% of sexually active male and females will face the risk of HPV infection at least one time by the age of 45 years and nearly 50% of total world’s population is on the risk of HPV infection once in their lifetime (Rasouli et al., 2023). Besides cervical cancer, HPV also causes anal cancers, vaginal cancers, vulvar cancers, and penile cancers (Dabán-López et al., 2023). HPV is a double-stranded DNA virus infecting skin or mucosal cells, and it has more than 200 known genotypes. High- risk HPV types are 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, and 68 and low-risk HPV types viz. 6, 11, 40, 42, 43, 44, 53, 54, 61, 72, 73, and 81. Approximately 93-100% of cases of cancer of the cervix are due to HPV type 16 and 18 (Rasouli et al., 2023). Various HPV conventional detection strategies like pap smear, visual inspection with acetic acid, colposcopy, cervical biopsy, southern blot hybridization assay along with modern techniques including polymerase chain reaction, HCII Hybrid Capture based on enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, DNA chips based HPV DNA Chip and sequencing are being used. These techniques exhibit limitations, including false positives, the need for specialized equipment, and less sensitivity and specificity. Despite significant advancements in technology and improvement of new diagnostic techniques, early detection of cervical cancer is a big challenge. Although, biosensors overcome the limitations of conventional techniques; however, existing HPV biosensors exhibit low sensitivity, specificity, stability, accuracy, cumbersome electrode preparation, expensive, inability to miniaturize and delayed response time. Hence, current electrochemical biosensors necessitate improving their analytical performance and economic detection of HPV. Biosensors fabricated using aptamers are used as recognition element to interact specifically with target analytes. Aptamers exhibit many advantages over antibodies due to their high selectivity to interact with diverse targets, including small molecules such as metal ions and large molecules like proteins and whole cells (Azzouz et al., 2021). Aptamers are stable at varying pH ranges, temperatures, and other storage conditions and are less prone to variations when made batch-to-batch at a small scale. Transducing elements functionalized with 2D nanomaterials has significantly enhanced the analytical performance of sensing devices as they exhibit unique structural configurations and excellent electrical, chemical, and physical properties.