Drugs of abuse testing: design and application of nanobioconjugates and test components for in vitro diagnostic assays

"In vitro diagnostic, (IVD), Point of care (POC)" detection technologies are emerged as futuristic technologies because of that they provide on-site, rapid and practical diagnostic information for a clinical situation. IVD kits are critical tools in terms of rapid and near-patient analysis of abused drugs. In parallel with the problems caused by substance addiction, drugs of abuse testing is required for wide range of applications including health, forensic field, workplace and traffic conditions. The main goal of this thesis project is the development and improvement of the so-called POC products, which have wide end-user network. For this aim, illicit drug IVD tests with novel methodological approaches were created via the combination of nanomaterial technologies with practical detection ways. In the design strategy of the developed test kits, various measurement principles were applied by using different signal agents and surface chemistry. The newly constructed microplate based assays and lateral flow based assays were investigated in detail for their working performances. Afterwards synthetic biological matrices were applied to the developed assays and their chromatographic confirmation was carried out successfully. Test signals in the designed test kits were measured by a mobile phone because of the combination with a smart phone application. Innovative, on-site and rapid test kits with possibility for mobile phone sensing are the prototypes of thesis project.