Chapter 4 - Smart biosensors for an efficient point of care (PoC) health management

Abstract

Biosensors is an amalgam of two major components—“biological” and “sensors,” which are easy to employ devices holding the potential to convert biological information into useful and important physical/chemical or electrical signals, namely based on the receptor–transducer property. They are very selective and sensitive when compared to their contemporary detection and diagnostic approaches, thus have been widely appreciated by medical practitioners and patients as well. Although biosensors have experienced many changes since 1909–2019, there are still some modifications which can be incorporated for their better performances. Medical and healthcare applications still lag behind with only a few applications such as glucometers, ECG management, cancer prediction, biomarker identification, female hygiene, and blood pressure monitoring. There is a need for the development of more point of care (PoC) diagnosis and prognosis-based biosensors which can help consultants to diagnose diseases as early as possible. Smart biosensor devices allow people living a smart and healthy lifestyle. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, and the internet of things (IoT) have also been integrated with biosensors for real-time monitoring, diagnosis, prediction, and decision-making. The improvements can be in terms of simplicity, affordability, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, multiplex analysis of multiple biomarkers, reduction in reagent consumption, reusability of biological sensing elements, making the device configurable for continuous monitoring, and so on. Efficient and smart biosensors development is ongoing and will be appreciated by everyone in the near future. This chapter is an attempt to present an insight to all the smart biosensors which are actively being used by people for maintaining a PoC lifestyle.