Quantifying Doxorubicin Toward Adaptive Chemotherapy with an Electrochemical Aptamer-Based Biosensor

Despite more than 100 chemotherapy treatments being available worldwide, 10 million people died of cancer in 2023. Doxorubicin is a common chemotherapy treatment, yet its survival rate is 28% due to its narrow therapeutic window, suggesting cardiotoxicity if slightly overdosed and insufficient anti-cancer effects if underdosed. These statistics highlight the flaws in current chemotherapy regimens, demanding a need for more effective treatment methods. Current chemotherapy dosing calculations do not account for the fact that each patient’s drug response can vary up to ten-fold, stressing the importance of adaptive and personalized dosing for effective treatment. This study outlines the platform framework for an intravenous biosensor to monitor the concentration of doxorubicin using an aptamer as its biorecognition element. Existing sequences determined via SELEX were used to generate an oligonucleotide library of aptamers. These aptamers were further engineered to maintain high affinity while undergoing conformational changes in blood. Computational methodologies and analysis techniques were used to simulate molecular docking. This sensing platform is intricately designed to monitor the concentration of doxorubicin in cancer patients toward effectively tailoring chemotherapy regimens to each patient.