The Applications of Biosensors and Biochips for Prognosis and Diagnosis of Diseases

Abstract

AbstractThe early diagnosis of chronic and infectious diseases is one of the top priorities globally. But the major obstacle is the detection and screening of minute amount of disease biomolecules or biomarkers circulating in the bloodstream and cerebrospinal fluid for the treatment of particular disease. The highly sensitive approaches are needed to detect targeted disease biomolecules or biomarkers at the concentration of pico- or femto-scale. Currently, sensing technologies available are confined to a thousand times larger concentrations. Using a pico- or nanoscale platform allows us to identify the lower concentrations of targeted biomolecules or biomarkers levels of diseases that will help in not only early diagnosis or beginning stages of diseases but timely treatment as well. For this purpose biosensors and biochips may play a pivotal role in the early diagnosis and screening of chronic and infectious diseases. Biosensors are composed of a wide variety of bioreceptors and tranducers. Commonly used bioreceptors are based on intermolecular interactions between antigen/antibody, nucleic acids, enzymes, cells (i.e., microorganisms), and synthetic bioreceptors (biomimetic materials). When biosensors are designed on integrated circuit microchips with transducers they are called biochips. To achieve higher throughput and speed, a collection of miniaturized test sites works together at the same time on a biochip. These miniature devices contain millions of biosensors. These biochips can detect chronic diseases, i.e., chronic kidney diseases (CKD), cancer, arthritis, neurological, and cardiovascular disorders, and infectious diseases as well. Pathogenic microorganisms are notoriously known for causing infectious diseases, i.e., protozoans, bacteria, fungi, or viruses. The current chapter provides an overview of the different types of biosensors and biochips for the diagnosis and screening of various chronic and infectious diseases along with significant advances.KeywordsBiosensorBiochipsChronic and infectious diseasesBiomarkerBiorecptors