This article aims to review nature-inspired chemical sensors for enabling fast, relatively inexpensive, and minimally (or non-) invasive diagnostics and follow-up of the health conditions. It can be achieved via monitoring of biomarkers and volatile biomarkers, that are excreted from one or combination of body fluids (breath, sweat, saliva, urine, seminal fluid, nipple aspirate fluid, tears, stool, blood, interstitial fluid, and cerebrospinal fluid). The first part of the review gives an updated compilation of the biomarkers linked with specific sickness and/or sampling origin. The other part of the review provides a didactic examination of the concepts and approaches related to the emerging chemistries, sensing materials, and transduction techniques used for biomarker-based medical evaluations. The strengths and pitfalls of each approach are discussed and criticized. Future perspective with relation to the information and communication era is presented and discussed.

The demand for interfacing electronics in everyday life is rapidly accelerating, with an ever‐growing number of applications in wearable electronics and electronic skins for robotics, prosthetics, and other purposes. Soft sensors that efficiently detect environmental or biological/physiological stimuli have been extensively studied due to their essential role in creating the necessary interfaces for these applications. Unfortunately, due to their natural softness, these sensors are highly sensitive to structural and mechanical damage. The integration of natural properties, such as self‐healing, into these systems should improve their reliability, stability, and long‐term performance. Recent studies on self‐healing soft sensors for varying chemical and physical parameters are herein reviewed. In addition, contemporary studies on material design, device structure, and fabrication methods for sensing platforms are also discussed. Finally, the main challenges and future perspectives in this field are introduced, while focusing on the most promising examples and directions already reported.

Integrating self‐healing capabilities into soft electronic devices and sensors is important for increasing their reliability, longevity, and sustainability. Although some advances in self‐healing soft electronics have been made, many challenges have been hindering their integration in digital electronics and their use in real‐world conditions. Herein, an electronic skin (e‐skin) with high sensing performance toward temperature, pressure, and pH levels—both at ambient and/or in underwater conditions is reported. The e‐skin is empowered with a novel self‐repair capability that consists of an intrinsic mechanism for efficient self‐healing of small‐scale damages as well as an extrinsic mechanism for damage mapping and on‐demand self‐healing of big‐scale damages in designated locations. The overall design is based on a multilayered structure that integrates a neuron‐like nanostructured network for self‐monitoring and damage detection and an array of electrical heaters for selective self‐repair. This system has significantly enhanced self‐healing capabilities; for example, it can decrease the healing time of microscratches from 24 h to 30 s. The electronic platform lays down the foundation for the development of a new subcategory of self‐healing devices in which electronic circuit design is used for self‐monitoring, healing, and restoring proper device function.

This paper provides an overview of recent developments in the field of volatile organic compound (VOC) sensors, which are finding uses in healthcare, safety, environmental monitoring, food and agriculture, oil industry, and other fields. It starts by briefly explaining the basics of VOC sensing and reviewing the currently available and quickly progressing VOC sensing approaches. It then discusses the main trends in materials’ design with special attention to nanostructuring and nanohybridization. Emerging sensing materials and strategies are highlighted and their involvement in the different types of sensing technologies is discussed, including optical, electrical, and gravimetric sensors. The review also provides detailed discussions about the main limitations of the field and offers potential solutions. The status of the field and suggestions of promising directions for future development are summarized.

Integrating self-healing capabilities into soft electronic devices increases their durability and long-term reliability. Although some advances have been made, the use of self-healing electronics in wet and/or (under)water environments has proven to be quite challenging, and has not yet been fully realized. Herein, a new highly water insensitive self-healing elastomer with high stretchability and mechanical strength that can reach 1100% and ≈6.5 MPa, respectively, is reported. The elastomer exhibits a high (>80%) self-healing efficiency (after ≈ 24 h) in high humidity and/or different (under)water conditions without the assistance of an external physical and/or chemical triggers. Soft electronic devices made from this elastomer are shown to be highly robust and able to recover their electrical properties after damages in both ambient and aqueous conditions. Moreover, once operated in extreme wet or underwater conditions (e.g., salty sea water), the self-healing capability leads to the elimination of significant electrical leakage that would be caused by structural damages. This highly efficient self-healing elastomer can help extend the use of soft electronics outside of the laboratory and allow a wide variety of wet and submarine applications.