In this work, the iridium(III) complex 1 was synthesized and employed in constructing an assay which is based on a G-quadruplex for detecting arsenic ions in aqueous solution. The assay achieved a detection limit of 7.6 nM (ca. 0.57 μg L−1) and showed high selectivity towards arsenic ions over other metal ions. Additionally, the assay could function in natural water and a simple microfluidic chip was used to investigate the potential of this platform for real-time detection.

In this work, the iridium(III) complex 1 was synthesized and employed in constructing an assay which is based on a G-quadruplex for detecting arsenic ions in aqueous solution. The assay achieved a detection limit of 7.6 nM (ca. 0.57 μg L−1) and showed high selectivity towards arsenic ions over other metal ions. Additionally, the assay could function in natural water and a simple microfluidic chip was used to investigate the potential of this platform for real-time detection.

The ever-growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) demands immediate countermeasures. With its novelty and enabling features including downscaled analysis, precisely controlled local environment, and enhanced speed, accuracy, and cost-efficiency, microfluidics has demonstrated potential in several key areas, including furthering our understanding of bacteria, developing better susceptibility testing tools, and overcoming obstacles in discovery and research of new antibiotics. While ample research results in the field of microfluidics are available, their transformation into practical application is still lagging far behind. We believe that the challenge of AMR will give microfluidics a much-needed opportunity to leap from research papers to true productivity, and gain wider acceptance as a mature technology.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a rapidly increasing threat to the effective treatment of infectious diseases worldwide. The two major remedies include: (1) using narrow-spectrum antibiotics based on rapid diagnosis; and (2) developing new antibiotics. A key part of both remedies is the antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST). However, the current standard ASTs that monitor colony formation are costly and time-consuming and the new strategies proposed are not yet practical to be implemented. Herein, we report a strategy to fabricate whole-hydrogel microfluidic chips using alginate-doped agar. This agar-based microfabrication makes it possible to prepare inexpensive hydrogel devices, and allows a seamless link between microfluidics and conventional agar-based cell culture. Different from common microfluidic systems, in our system the cells are cultured on top of the device, similar to normal agar plate culture; on the other hand, the microfluidic channels inside the hydrogel allow precise generation of linear gradient of drugs, thus giving a better performance than the conventional disk diffusion method. Cells in this system are not exposed to any shear flow, which allows the reliable tracking of individual cells and AST results to be obtained within 2–3 hours. Furthermore, our system could test the synergistic effect of drugs through two-dimensional gradient generation. Finally, the platform could be directly implemented to new drug discovery and other applications wherein a fast, cost-efficient method for studying the response of microorganisms upon drug administration is desirable.

In this work, the iridium(III) complex 1 was synthesized and employed in constructing an assay which is based on a G-quadruplex for detecting arsenic ions in aqueous solution. The assay achieved a detection limit of 7.6 nM (ca. 0.57 μg L−1) and showed high selectivity towards arsenic ions over other metal ions. Additionally, the assay could function in natural water and a simple microfluidic chip was used to investigate the potential of this platform for real-time detection.

In this work, the iridium(III) complex 1 was synthesized and employed in constructing an assay which is based on a G-quadruplex for detecting arsenic ions in aqueous solution. The assay achieved a detection limit of 7.6 nM (ca. 0.57 μg L−1) and showed high selectivity towards arsenic ions over other metal ions. Additionally, the assay could function in natural water and a simple microfluidic chip was used to investigate the potential of this platform for real-time detection.