In this manner, sensor technologies have garnered great attention in various fields, including biomedicine, [2][3][4][5] environmental monitoring, [6][7][8][9] smart devices, [10] wearable devices, [11] automobile manufacturing [12] since the semiconductor materials and circuits have been developed. In particular, biosensors are powerful and innovative analytical tools that incorporate biological receptors to recognize biological analytes through either physical or chemical transducers. Primarily, bio-receptors are responsible for identifying and capturing target analytes, and the transducer basically translates biological and chemical information into the detectable signals, which are eventually converted into the concentration of the analyte. [13,14] Considering gold standard methods, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) [15] and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based strategies, [16] biosensors mostly hold crucial features, such as i) short assay time, [17] ii) affordable tools and reagents, [18] iii) portability, [19] and iv) facile use and minimum user interpretation. [20] Nowadays, the applications of biosensors have been leveraged by the advancements of portable and miniaturized platforms. In particular, over the past years, wearable health monitoring devices have notable impact on continuous and real-time monitoring of health parameters, thereby accelerating the deployment of biosensing strategies to daily lives. Besides, non-invasive and ease-of-collecting information supports the benefits of the wearable systems for enhancing the awareness of individuals and communities. [21][22][23] The special features of the mechanically flexible and stable wearable sensors include remarkable means, such as portability, comfortability, light-weight, non-invasive, and reliable performance. To put it simply, wearable sensors are readily attached to skin or organ surfaces through an adhesive tape [24] or microneedles, [25] and because of such easy integrations, several researchers have focused on developing wearable sensors for real-time health monitoring. A wearable sensor is basically composed of some vital elements, including a flexible base material attached to the skin or an organ, a signal transfer electrode, and a biorecognition element. Recently, researchers have concentrated on creating integrated sensors that are able to measure various parameters simultaneously, such as pressure, temperature,The healthcare system has a drastic paradigm shift from centralized care to home-based and self-monitoring strategies; aiming to reach more individuals, minimize workload in hospitals, and reduce healthcare-associated expenses. Particularly, wearable technologies are garnering considerable interest by tracking physiological parameters through motion and activities, and monitoring biochemical markers from sweat, saliva, and tears. Through their integrations with sensors, microfluidics, and wireless communication systems, they allow physicians, family members, or individuals to monitor multiple parameters withou...

After the first case has appeared in China, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose an omnipresent threat to global health, affecting more than 70 million patients and leading to around 1.6 million deaths. To implement rapid and effective clinical management, early diagnosis is the mainstay. Today, real-time reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR test is the major diagnostic practice as a gold standard method for accurate diagnosis of this disease. On the other side, serological assays are easy to be implemented for the disease screening. Considering the limitations of today's tests including lengthy assay time, cost, the need for skilled personnel, and specialized infrastructure, both strategies, however, have impediments to be applied to the resource-scarce settings. Therefore, there is an urgent need to democratize all these practices to be applicable across the globe, specifically to the locations comprising of very limited infrastructure. In this regard, sensor systems have been utilized in clinical diagnostics largely, holding great potential to have pivotal roles as an alternative or complementary options to these current tests, providing crucial fashions such as being suitable for point-of-care settings, cost-effective, and having short turnover time. In particular, the integration of smart materials into sensor technologies leverages their analytical performances, including sensitivity, linear dynamic range, and specificity. Herein, we comprehensively review major smart materials such as nanomaterials, photosensitive materials, electrically sensitive materials, their integration with sensor platforms, and applications as wearable tools within the scope of the COVID-19 diagnosis.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is one of the most prevalent and complex clinical syndromes with high morbidity and mortality. The traditional diagnosis parameters are insufficient regarding specificity and sensitivity, and therefore, novel biomarkers and their facile and rapid applications are being sought to improve the diagnostic procedures. The biosensors, which are employed on the basis of electrochemistry, plasmonics, molecular probes, and nanoparticles, are the prominent ways of developing point-of-care devices, along with the mutual integration of efficient surface chemistry strategies. In this manner, biosensing platforms hold pivotal significance in detecting and quantifying novel AKI biomarkers to improve diagnostic interventions, potentially accelerating clinical management to control the injury in a timely manner. In this review, novel diagnostic platforms and their manufacturing processes are presented comprehensively. Furthermore, strategies to boost their effectiveness are also indicated with several applications. To maximize these efforts, we also review various biosensing approaches with a number of biorecognition elements (e.g., antibodies, aptamers, and molecular imprinting molecules), as well as benchmark their features such as robustness, stability, and specificity of these platforms.

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