Chapter 10 - Wearable biosensor platform: design and healthcare commercial values

Abstract

Conventional medical diagnosis is centered on complex blood sampling and analysis, which is time-consuming and involves multiple pretreatment processes. In contrast, fast-growing wearable biosensors offer continuous monitoring of health and physiological status of individuals in a real-time and noninvasive fashion. Recent advances in electrochemical sensors enable rapid, sensitive, and selective detection of trace levels of vital bioindicators from complex biofluids. Wearable sensors harvest biochemical information from easily accessible biofluids such as sweat, saliva, tears, and interstitial fluid. Conformal integration of wearable sensors onto the skin surface or fabric substrate is essential for facile biofluid collection and transport. Skin or fabric surfaces are nonplanar and flexible in nature, which mandates use of wearable electrodes having similar mechanical properties and self-healing abilities. Also, wearable sensors need miniature controller electronics to realize multiplexed readout of biomarker signals, data processing, wireless signal transition, and user-friendly data readout gadgets. The chapter focuses on the recent advances and challenges in the sensor development, their translational capabilities, and commercial values.