Nanostructures for Biosensing, with a Brief Overview on Cancer Detection, IoT, and the Role of Machine Learning in Smart Biosensors

Abstract

Biosensors are essential tools which have been traditionally used to monitor environmental pollution and detect the presence of toxic elements and biohazardous bacteria or virus in organic matter and biomolecules for clinical diagnostics. In the last couple of decades, the scientific community has witnessed their widespread application in the fields of military, health care, industrial process control, environmental monitoring, food-quality control, and microbiology. Biosensor technology has greatly evolved from in vitro studies based on the biosensing ability of organic beings to the highly sophisticated world of nanofabrication-enabled miniaturized biosensors. The incorporation of nanotechnology in the vast field of biosensing has led to the development of novel sensors and sensing mechanisms, as well as an increase in the sensitivity and performance of the existing biosensors. Additionally, the nanoscale dimension further assists the development of sensors for rapid and simple detection in vivo as well as the ability to probe single biomolecules and obtain critical information for their detection and analysis. However, the major drawbacks of this include, but are not limited to, potential toxicities associated with the unavoidable release of nanoparticles into the environment, miniaturization-induced unreliability, lack of automation, and difficulty of integrating the nanostructured-based biosensors, as well as unreliable transduction signals from these devices. Although the field of biosensors is vast, we intend to explore various nanotechnology-enabled biosensors as part of this review article and provide a brief description of their fundamental working principles and potential applications. The article aims to provide the reader a holistic overview of different nanostructures which have been used for biosensing purposes along with some specific applications in the field of cancer detection and the Internet of things (IoT), as well as a brief overview of machine-learning-based biosensing.

New Directions in Sensor Research: A Bibliometric Analysis for Detecting Emerging Research Fields and New Technological Trajectories

“…efficiency of biosensor performance to reduce human error in disease detection and the cost of human resource in the health care industry(Banerjee et al, 2021;Naresh and Lee, 2021). One of the aspects that supports the growth of biosensor is the emergence of biochemical sensors containing active materials in their chemical structures to assess biological or chemical reactions by signals generation to identify and measure the concentration of an analyte in the reaction.…”

A Comparison between Silver Nanosquare Arrays and Silver Thin-Films as a Blood Cancer Prognosis Monitoring Electrode Design Using Optical and Electrochemical Characterization

“…The dimensions of the Ag nanosquare array were chosen according to the results of the preliminary simulation in which the Ag nanosquare array with a diameter of 250 nm showed a difference in peak wavelength and maximum absorbance intensity, as shown in Figure S1. The advantage of this nanoimprinted AAO pattern is that the nanostructure enhances the electrochemical signal of biocatalytic events occurring at the electrode/electrolyte interface for the purpose of biosensing [33].…”

“…Nanomaterials 2021, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 5 of 17 absorbance intensity, as shown in Figure S1. The advantage of this nanoimprinted AAO pattern is that the nanostructure enhances the electrochemical signal of biocatalytic events occurring at the electrode/electrolyte interface for the purpose of biosensing [33].…”

“…This interaction produces a coherence resonance of Ag surface conduction electrons. The binding of BSA to the Ag surface results in a change in the dielectric constant of the surrounding medium which in turn causes a change in the optical characteristics of the EM wave on the Ag surface that is proportional to the change in the concentration of BSA [33,42]. A study conducted by Nonoyama showed a peak optical density at a wavelength of 550 nm for whole blood cells, while a peak optical density for blood cancer was at a wavelength of 800 nm.…”

Scientific Developments and New Technological Trajectories in Sensor Research

“…[ 20 , 22 , 31 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. New studies show that smart sensors are crucial elements for the Internet of Things [ 43 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. The continuous interactions of sensor technologies with other technologies generate new applications in different fields, such as medicine, environmental science, telematics, the Internet of Things, etc.…”