ABSTRACT
Many biosensors used for monitoring chemical toxicants and bacterial pathogens require minimal reagents and sample preparation to provide an early warning signal about the presence of an analyte and its degree of toxicity. However, to be truly effective, these screening devices must be able to rapidly provide qualitative information about the presence of a toxin in multiple samples. To address these challenges multiarray biosensor platforms have been developed to increase the sample throughput and respond to current requirements for multianalysis and multidetection. This chapter discusses the basic design principles of multiarray biosensors and the practical opportunities for monitoring of toxins and bacterial pathogens. Specifically, electrochemical multisensory array and “electronic nose” technology are used for high-throughput toxicity screening and optical multiarray sensors for pathogen detection. The role of computational techniques in processing multiarray biosensor data is also explored.
