Aptamers are an example of an emerging technology that are beginning to rival existing infection detection systems . This is due to their economical manufacture, ease of production, high stability and their ability to effectively bind targets with high specificity . Aptamers have been designed to detect an array of biochemically diverse targets, which include low molecular weight compounds , proteins , nucleic acids 28 bacteria and eukaryotic cells . Furthermore, a number of innovative signal transduction mechanisms have been implemented to detect analytical targets , which include quantification of fluorescence emission from quantum dot encoding of aptamer-linked nanostructures , electrochemical biosensing using aptamer functionalised platinum nanoparticles and magnetic resonance imaging of aptamer functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles .