Field‐Effect Biosensors for On‐Site Detection: Recent Advances and Promising Targets

Abstract

There is an explosive interest in the immediate and cost-effective analysis of field-collected biological samples, as many advanced biodetection tools are highly sensitive, yet immobile. On-site biosensors are portable and convenient sensors that provide detection results at the point of care. They are designed to secure precision in highly ionic and heterogeneous solutions with minimal hardware. Among various methods that are capable of such analysis, field-effect biosensors are promising candidates due to their unique sensitivity, manufacturing scalability, and integrability with computational circuitry. Recent developments in nanotechnological surface modification show promising results in sensing from blood, serum, and urine. This report gives a particular emphasis on the on-site efficacy of recently published field-effect biosensors, specifically, detection limits in physiological solutions, response times, and scalability. The survey of the properties and existing detection methods of four promising biotargets, exosomes, bacteria, viruses, and metabolites, aims at providing a roadmap for future field-effect and other on-site biosensors.

Capacitive Field-Effect EIS Chemical Sensors and Biosensors: A Status Report

“…Due to the small size and weight, fast response time, label-free operation, possibility of real-time and multiplexed measurements, and compatibility with micro- and nanofabrication technologies with the future prospect of a large-scale production at relatively low cost, semiconductor field-effect devices (FEDs) based on an electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor (EIS) system are one of the most exciting approaches for chemical and biological sensing. Ion-sensitive field-effect transistors (ISFET) [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ], extended-gate ISFETs [ 6 ], capacitive EIS sensors [ 7 , 8 , 9 ], light-addressable potentiometric sensors [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ], silicon nanowire FETs (SiNW-FET) [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ], graphene-based FETs [ 18 , 19 ], and carbon nanotube-based FETs [ 18 , 20 ] constitute typical examples of transducer structures for chemically/biologically sensitive FEDs. At present, numerous FEDs modified with respective recognition elements have been developed for the detection of pH, ion concentrations, substrate–enzyme reactions, nucleic acid hybridizations, and antigen–antibody affinity reactions, just to name a few.…”

Integrated Electrochemical Biosensors for Detection of Waterborne Pathogens in Low-Resource Settings

“…With the rise of big data in the field of bioinformatics and the need for higher resolution monitoring analytics, the development of on-site biosensing has become a central topic. Electrochemical biosensors have the capacity to provide a truly integrated lab-on-chip (LoC) approach with a key focus on portability, capacity to achieve miniaturization, and maintaining high sensitivity (see Figure 12) [110][111][112].…”

“…With the rise of big data in the field of bioinformatics and the need for higher resolution monitoring analytics, the development of on-site biosensing has become a central topic. Electrochemical biosensors have the capacity to provide a truly integrated lab-on-chip (LoC) approach with a key focus on portability, capacity to achieve miniaturization, and maintaining high sensitivity (see Figure 12) [110][111][112]. Point-of-care (PoC) handheld or in situ monitoring devices require the integration of several components, namely, electrochemical sensing electrodes, microfluidics, signal connectivity, power sources, as well as other miniaturized elements [48,57].…”

Printed Organic Transistor-based Biosensors for Non-invasive Sweat Analysis

“…As the concentration of some biomarkers is much lower in sweat than in blood, 29,30 analysis, as the biorecognition area is directly connected to an amplifier in its vicinity. [31][32][33][34][35] Figure 1 shows typical structures for bottom-gate and electrolyte-gate type, transistor-based biosensors. The bottom-gate type has source and drain electrodes in contact with a semiconductor layer, with the bottom gate electrode indirectly contacting this layer via a dielectric layer.…”