Professor Nicolas Plumeré of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and his team have reported a practical way to significantly improve the accuracy of common oxidase-based biosensors, pushing their performance from roughly 50 percent to about 99 percent without recalibration. Their findings have drawn attention across several research outlets because they challenge a long-standing assumption in biosensor engineering: that oxygen interference is an unavoidable limitation rather than a controllable design factor.
Zhang, H., Saadeldin, M. G., Buesen, D., Elfaitory, H., Burger, J., Friebe, V. M., Honacker, J., Vöpel, T., Oughli, A. A., & Plumeré, N. (2025). A universal oxygen scavenger for oxidase-based biosensors. Science Advances, 11(37). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw6133
Biosensors have become part of everyday clinical monitoring, particularly in diabetes care, critical care units and sports medicine. However, their broader use has been restricted because oxidase enzymes do not always send their electrons to the sensor’s electrode as intended. Instead, a considerable fraction is diverted to oxygen present in the sensor environment. This loss reduces the measurable current and leads to readings that underestimate the real concentration of glucose, lactate, creatinine or other analytes. Engineers and clinicians have worked around this constraint for decades, often relying on laboratory calibration, dilution steps or more complex instrumentation.
Professor Nicolas Plumeré of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) stated,
“We see a wide range of new and expanded applications and the potential to eliminate some lab tests in the future. In personalized medicine, these biosensors could help calibrate wearable devices, providing more reliable health data, detecting problems early, and supporting accurate medication dosing. There’s also potential in AI-driven health care, which depends on large datasets that improved biosensors could help generate.”
The TUM team approached the problem by considering the internal chemical landscape of the sensor rather than attempting to redesign its electrode or detection chemistry. They incorporated a second enzyme, an alcohol oxidase, whose role is to remove excess oxygen within the sensor. This oxygen scavenger converts free oxygen into water and does not interact with the target analytes. What results is a low-oxygen environment in which the primary oxidase reaction consistently transfers electrons to the electrode instead of competing with atmospheric oxygen.
Multiple independent reports describing the study note that this change produces a more stable and linear signal, enabling precise detection of glucose, lactate and creatinine without adjusting calibration curves. In their experiments, the researchers observed that the modified sensors produced readings that closely matched true concentrations even at levels where conventional oxidase sensors typically show large deviations. Because the adjustment is biochemical rather than structural, the scavenger can in principle be integrated into existing biosensor platforms.
The implications extend beyond personal health monitoring. More accurate biosensors can improve the reliability of wearable medical devices, support early detection of organ stress in clinical settings and contribute cleaner datasets for AI-driven health systems that depend on continuous, high-quality physiological inputs. Creatinine sensing in particular has been limited by inconsistent accuracy, and this method suggests a realistic path toward point-of-care kidney function assessments.
The group is also exploring agricultural uses. Within a project focused on live plant sensing, the same oxygen-scavenging approach has been applied to measure nitrogen content in wheat tissue. Nitrogen testing is a challenge for farmers who rely on infrequent laboratory analyses or broad estimates when adjusting fertilizer levels. A low-cost, field-ready biosensor that generates accurate nitrogen readings could reduce over-fertilization, lower production costs and limit runoff-related environmental impacts.
What makes the work notable from an engineering standpoint is its simplicity. Advanced biosensor development usually centers on optimizing electrodes, materials or circuitry. Plumeré’s team instead targeted a side reaction that had been treated as inevitable. By lowering the oxygen concentration inside the sensor, they effectively reopened the design space for oxidase-based systems. Their experiments suggest that many sensing applications dismissed as impractical due to low accuracy may now be reconsidered.
While further testing will focus on long-term stability, manufacturing compatibility and real-world performance, the study shows that a subtle biochemical intervention can resolve a decades-old bottleneck. For a field that often moves incrementally, this work demonstrates how revisiting basic assumptions can lead to disproportionately large improvements in sensor performance.
Adrian graduated with a Masters Degree (1st Class Honours) in Chemical Engineering from Chester University along with Harris. His master’s research aimed to develop a standardadised clean water oxygenation transfer procedure to test bubble diffusers that are currently used in the wastewater industry commercial market. He has also undergone placments in both US and China primarely focused within the R&D department and is an associate member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers (IChemE).
