Towards Fully Integrated Portable Sensing Devices for COVID-19 and Future Global Hazards: Recent Advances, Challenges, and Prospects

Abstract

Since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, this fatal disease has been the leading cause of the death of more than 3.9 million people around the world. This tragedy taught us that we should be well-prepared to control the spread of such infectious diseases and prevent future hazards. As a consequence, this pandemic has drawn the attention of many researchers to the development of portable platforms with short hands-on and turnaround time suitable for batch production in urgent pandemic situations such as that of COVID-19. Two main groups of diagnostic assays have been reported for the detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) including nucleic acid-based and protein-based assays. The main focus of this paper is on the latter, which requires a shorter time duration, less skilled technicians, and faces lower contamination. Furthermore, this paper gives an overview of the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) biosensors, which are potentially useful for implementing point-of-care (PoC) platforms based on such assays. CMOS technology, as a predominant technology for the fabrication of integrated circuits, is a promising candidate for the development of PoC devices by offering the advantages of reliability, accessibility, scalability, low power consumption, and distinct cost.

Point-of-Care Devices for Viral Detection: COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

“…Electrochemical biosensors have received enormous attention owing to their simplicity, affordability, and potential for miniaturization. These tiny devices utilize tailored electrodes that serve as receptors or transducers, depending on the specific requirements, to enable real-time, specific, and accurate target monitoring [ 95 , 96 , 97 ]. By extracting potentiometric or amperometric signals from the sensing electrode, information linked to the analyte presence can be obtained [ 98 , 99 , 100 ].…”

Microfluidics-Based POCT for SARS-CoV-2 Diagnostics

“…While electrochemical biosensors are tiny devices that are affordable and easy to shrink, they are particularly popular due to their simplicity and lower cost. In an electrochemical biosensor, real-time, specific, and accurate target monitoring generally relies on a tailored electrode, which acts as either the receptor or transducer depending on the need [106][107][108]. Potentiometric or amperometric signals, related to the presence of the analyte of interest, can be extracted from the sensing electrode's information [109][110][111].…”

Assessing, Pricing and Funding Point-of-Care Diagnostic Tests for Community-Acquired Acute Respiratory Tract Infections–Overview of Policies Applied in 17 European Countries

“…In light of the global health and also economic burden of AMR, point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tests can make an important contribution to improved quality of antibiotic prescribing, as they allow identifying and targeting those patients who actually need antibiotics [ 1 , 2 ]. While the value of POC tests has long been known for respiratory diseases [ 3 , 4 , 5 ], their tremendous benefit from a clinical and public health perspective was confirmed in the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests) [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].…”