ABSTRACT
The observed rapid growth of environmental pollution has been attributed to expanding industrialization and application of intensive agricultural technologies. There is an urgent need to develop pollution monitoring (Del Carlo et al. 2004; Wang et al. 2009) and novel methods for fast screening of harmful compounds and the development of inexpensive and fi eld-deployable biosensors responding to various pollutants. Of a particular importance are bioactive pollutants, interacting with DNA and causing DNA damage (Ashby et al. 2002; Clements et al. 1997; Freeman and Rayburn 2004; Greenlae et al. 2004), carcinogenesis (Alavanja et al. 2003; Hopenhayn-Rich et al. 2002; Schroeder et al. 2001), and a number of different diseases. Herbicides and pesticides are notorious and very serious environmental pollutants (Clements et al. 1997). There is mounting evidence for their highly acute toxicity and a wide range of biological activities (Fan et al. 2007; Ribas et al. 1995; Surralles et al. 1995). It is believed that active herbicides/pesticides in combination with adjuvants used in agricultural preparations are the main source of genotoxicity (Zeljezic et al. 2006). The Codex Alimentarius Commission of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have established maximum residue limits for pesticides in food. Standard procedures, based on liquid chromatography and gas chromatography, are reliable techniques for routine laboratory detections of pesticides. However, there is also a need for innovative methods for rapid, inexpensive, and fi eld-deployable testing. Recently, highly sensitive piezoimmunosensors for the detection of herbicides, atrazine (Pribyl et al. 2003) and 2,4-D (Halamek et al. 2001), have been developed. The affi nity electrochemical biosensors for pollution control have been proposed by Mascini (Mascini 2001). Disposable immuno-
electrochemical sensors for herbicides have been reported by Helali et al. (Helali et al. 2006).
