Investigations into optical biosensors in visible-NIR wavelength band for disease detection applications

Abstract

In the latest published results from Global Burden of Disease (GBD) in 2017, the top two contributors to the disease burden which requires the most urgent attention are Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and female breast cancer. As AD is a neurological disorder with unknown causes, it is almost impossible to adopt any preventive measures. Additionally, current medical tools are unable to reverse the effects of AD. Hence, the best approach is to detect the early onset of AD so that measures can be implemented early to halt or slow down its progress. However, existing techniques for the early detection of AD primarily focus on using neuroimaging which may be too expensive to conduct regularly. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a low-cost method for the early detection of AD. In the case of female breast cancer, despite being the most diagnosed form of cancer, the data also have shown that it has very promising survival rates when the cancer is detected and treated in the early stages. However, the effectiveness of existing breast cancer detection techniques is hugely limited by the low uptake of the screening program. This could be due to the lack of awareness or misconception regarding breast cancer and due to the perceived hassle of having to go for regular screening at periodic intervals. Hence, there is a need to explore alternative breast cancer screening methods that are more hasslefree.A biosensor is a promising candidate in this context, which could provide a low-cost and hassle-free approach for the screening of diseases such as AD and female breast cancer.Electrochemical biosensors are well-established and have already been commercialised such as blood glucose monitors. However, such biosensors typically have low sensitivity which could not be used to accurately diagnose diseases. With the recent improvement