Advances in Animal and Veterinary Sciences

Review Article
Adv. Anim. Vet. Sci. 1 (4S): 37 - 44. Special Issue-4 (Progress in Research on Viruses and Viral Diseases)
View Full HTML
Download PDF

B. Vijayalakshmi Ayyar1, Sushrut Arora2*
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA, 2Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA;
*Corresponding author: drsarora@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Improved, cost–effective and rapid diagnostic are highly desirable for detection of veterinary pathogens. They are further desirable for veterinary viral pathogen detection as these pathogens generally cause major ailments in animals. Additionally, there are numerous emerging and re–emerging viral pathogens with many of them being zoonotic, and having public health implications. However, the conventional methodologies for viral detection possess numerous lacunae and, subsequently, they fail to provide the indispensable and timely advantages desired for early diseases intervention. Biosensors offer a lucrative alternative to pathogen detection and their global market is rapidly increasing. Antibody–based biosensors are a class of biosensors with high specificity and have the potential of revolutionizing pathogen detection. They offer numerous advantages over the conventional or molecular methodologies, with the most significant being the option of “on–site” pathogen detection. As of yet, there are limited reports of the application of antibody–based biosensors in veterinary viral detection. However, we feel this technology holds a lot of potential, especially in wake of the recent developments in the areas of antibody–generation, nanotechnology and microfluidics along with the availability of improved antibody immobilization strategies. Consequently, it remains to be seen if biosensors can seize a part of the growing veterinary diagnostics market.

Key Words: Biosensors, Antibody–based biosensors, Diagnosis, Veterinary virus detection, “on–site” Detection