Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and treatments,where the continuous monitoring of diseases, prevention
methods and development of more ef ective drugs with minimal side
ef ects will benei t from biosensing technologies, allowing the improve-
ment of quality of life.
1.5
Conclusions and Future Prospects
As a result of the unique physical and chemical properties of graphene and
ZnO nanostructures, an explosive growth in research on their biomedi-
cal applications can be observed from the literature in the past few years,
especially in the areas of biosensors, bioelectronics, drug delivery, cellular
imaging, cancer therapy, etc.
h is chapter has selectively summarized recent approaches (particularly
from the last decade) in the rapidly developing area of electrochemical
biosensors based on graphene and ZnO-nanostructures for the detec-
tion of clinically relevant analytes. Although these nanomaterials are still
in an early stage of material science, their use has taken of rapidly and
will surely continue to expand at an accelerated pace. h e judicious appli-
cation of graphene and ZnO nanostructures has led to the fabrication of
novel biosensing devices with enhanced signal amplii cation and coding
strategies for bioai nity assays and ei cient electrical communication with
redox biomolecules/enzymes that may address future diagnostic needs or
solve environmental or food problems. h e broad potential and excellent
capabilities of ered by both nanoscale materials have been illustrated using
numerous examples involving electrochemical sensing and biosensing of
clinically relevant analytes.
Graphene and ZnO nanostructures-based platforms can be employed
as immobilization matrixes to construct electrochemical biosensors for
the detection of biologically important analytes. h ese novel bioplat-
forms allow the development of many new signal transduction technolo-
gies in biosensors, arising from the submicrometer dimensions that can
be utilized for simple and rapid
in vivo
analysis, providing a new horizon
for novel functions with a variety of important applications in medical
diagnostics. h e excellent performance demonstrated by these electro-
chemical miniaturized sensors pave the way to perform biologically rel-
evant measurements inside living cells. Some of these biosensors have
also demonstrated their excellent performance in FIA experiments. h e
use of such platforms will lead to the fabrication of viable commercial
electrochemical biosensors and point-of-care systems useful for clinical
analysis.
