DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL ASSAY FOR MOLECULES OF ABUSE BASED ON MOLECULARLY IMPRINTED POLYMERS AS SYNTHETIC ANTIBODIES

During the last fifteen years the occurrences of deaths from drug overdoses has increased exponentially. For this reason, the interest in finding quick and relatively inexpensive detection methods has risen as well. This research is focused on the development of a robust and cheap analytical assay to detect molecules of abuse such as fentanyl based on molecularly imprinted polymeric nanoparticles as synthetic antibodies. Molecularly imprinted nanoparticles assay has been used to detect and quantify the concentration of fentanyl with a limit of detection of 156 nM, and coefficient of variance below 3%. Thanks to the ease of use and reduced cost of manufacture, this methodology has the potential to become an efficient alternative to commercially available techniques such as antibodies-based assays (ELISA).