Surface plasmonic biosensors: principles, designs and applications.

Recently, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors have been widely used in environmental monitoring, food contamination detection and diagnosing medical conditions due to their superior sensitivity, label-free detection and rapid analysis speed. This paper briefly elaborates on the development history of SPR technology and introduces SPR signal sensing principles. A summary of recent applications of SPR sensors in different fields is highlighted, including their figures of merit and limitations.

Single-molecule immunoassay technology: Recent advances.

Detecting diseases at the molecular level aids in early diagnosis and treatment. However, traditional immunological detection techniques, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and chemiluminescence, have detection sensitivities between 10 and 10 mol/L, which are inadequate for early diagnosis. Single-molecule immunoassays can reach detection sensitivities of 10 mol/L and can detect biomarkers that are difficult to measure using conventional detection techniques.

Magnetic nanoprobe-enabled lateral flow assays: recent advances.

In recent years, magnetic nanoparticle sensor technologies have attracted considerable interest in the point-of-care-testing (POCT) field, especially in lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs). Although the visual signal of magnetic nanoparticles is reduced during an inspection, it can be compensated for by magnetic induction, and detection results can be quantified by magnetic sensors. Sensors that use magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) as markers can overcome the high background noise of complex samples.

An automatic whole blood analyzer for renal function analysis with a centrifugal microfluidic device.

In recent years, chronic kidney disease (CKD) has received widespread attention as one of the fastest growing non-communicable diseases (NCD) worldwide. Here, a clinical biochemical detection system based on a centrifugal microfluidic chip was designed to simplify the rapid detection of renal function indices. A photosensor was used to design an optical signal acquisition structure that can detect products or substrates after enzymatic reactions of uric acid, creatinine, and urea.

3D printed microfluidic Coulter counter for blood cell analysis.

Coulter counters are ubiquitous in everyday life; however, with reduced orifice size shrinkage, there is an increased risk of clogging. Herein, a 3D microfluidic printing-based single-use kit is presented for analyzing biological samples and performing accurate Coulter cell count analysis (, white blood cells in the blood). The gem hole eliminates the traditional design concept of integration inside the detection instrument, innovatively causing it to be independent from the analysis instrument.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgM detection with a GMR based LFIA system.

Since December 2019, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused millions of deaths and seriously threatened the safety of human life; indeed, this situation is worsening and many people are infected with the new coronavirus every day. Therefore, it is very important to understand patients' degree of infection and infection history through antibody testing. Such information is useful also for the government and hospitals to formulate reasonable prevention policies and treatment plans.

A miniaturized giant magnetic resistance system for quantitative detection of methamphetamine.

Point-of-care testing (POCT) systems have been greatly developed in recent years. Among them, lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) based on magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is widely used in various fields due to the advantages of small background noise and good biocompatibility. This paper designed an ultra-sensitive giant magnetic resistance (GMR) system for the quantitative detection of methamphetamine (MET).

Quantitative detection of morphine based on an up-conversion luminescent system.

An up-conversion luminescent material converts low-frequency excitation light into high-frequency emission light through photons and has the advantages of long fluorescence lifetime, narrow emission peak and low toxicity; thus, this material has many unique applications in the detection and identification of biomolecules. In this study, an ultrasensitive up-conversion luminescent system for the quantitative detection of morphine was developed. The principle of this system is based on infrared light as an excitation light source to convert light with lower energy into excitation light with higher energy.

Increasing straw surface functionalities for enhanced adsorption property.

A simple low-temperature partial-oxidation process was demonstrated as an effective technology for reed straw modification towards environmental remediation. At an optimal temperature of 180 °C, the straw materials exhibited a remarkable colour change from light yellow to dark brown, increased methylene blue (MB) uptake by 1.8 times, enhanced removal efficiency from 34.

Biomarkers detection with magnetoresistance-based sensors.

Biosensing platforms for detecting and quantifying biomarkers have played an important role in the past decade. Among them, platforms based on magnetoresistance (MR) sensing technology are attractive. The resistance value of the material changes with the externally applied magnetic field is the core mechanism of MR sensing technology.

A review on microfluidics in the detection of food pesticide residues.

This paper briefly explains the food safety problems related to pesticide residues and introduces microfluidics technology as a pesticide residue detection method. Three mainstream microfluidic detection devices are detailed: one driven by liquid surface tension, one by motor siphon drive, and one by centrifugal force. The advantages and disadvantages of each are considered in an analysis of future trends in microfluidic technology for pesticide detection.

Palm-Sized Uric Acid Test Lab Powered by Smartphone for Proactive Gout Management.

A simple and convenient photochemical system based on a smartphone-powered photochemical dongle and disposable photochemical test strips was proposed in this paper. The components of the system were only connected with each other in a simple hot-plug way, but provided a convenient function of biological sample detection. The photochemical dongle working as a highly rigorous reflectance spectral analyzer was used to evaluate the uric acid levels of the fingertip whole blood with the participation of the photochemical test strip for the point of care, which showed good agreement (linear regression coefficient of 0.

Combination of medical and health care based on digital smartphone-powered photochemical dongle for renal function management.

Currently, the global healthcare market is increasing at high speed with the impendent global aging issue. Healthcare Industry 4.0 has emerged as an efficient solution towards the aging issue since it was integrated with ubiquitous medical sensors, big health processing platform, high bandwidth, speed technologies, and medical services, etc.

Flexible Antenna Design on PDMS Substrate for Implantable Bioelectronics Applications.

In the current field of biomedical engineering, the research on implanted antennas has attracted more and more attention. This paper presents a flexible terrestrial radiating antenna with circular polarization characteristics that satisfy various requirements for biomedical implantable antennas. The new type of flexible material is adopted and a novel model is proposed.

A Numerical Model of Blood Flow Velocity Measurement Based on Finger Ring.

Aiming to measure the blood flow velocity in a finger, a novel noninvasive method, i.e., a ring with a heat source chip and a temperature sensor, is designed in this paper.

Cytomorphology-based microchip with contour extraction processing for bioparticle analysis.

In this paper, we demonstrated an integrated digital image processing framework that is training-free for high throughput beads or biological cells detection and enumeration by the bead aggregation splitting algorithm. By making contour extraction processing, the aggregated beads can be clearly split for precise counting. It can be potentially embedded on-chip in a miniaturized medical equipment to automatically adjust illumination condition and de-noise.

Blood Cholesterol Monitoring With Smartphone as Miniaturized Electrochemical Analyzer for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention.

Currently, cardiovascular diseases become one of the major threat to human's life. The early prevention of cardiovascular diseases plays a critical role in the healthcare engineering. Point of care monitoring the blood lipid level is capable of making the positive contribution to the prevention of cardiovascular disease.