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Recent advances in nanobiosensors for sustainable healthcare applications: A systematic literature review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.117177Get rights and content

Highlights

• The necessity of Point of Care testing for contagious and non-contagious disease.

• Implementation of nanobiosensors for sustainable healthcare application.

• Nanobiosensors give a sensitive, selective, and quick diagnosis of fatal diseases.

• Biosensors allow the evolution of Lab-on-a-chip techniques for healthcare solution.

Abstract

The need for novel healthcare treatments and drugs has increased due to the expanding human population, detection of newer diseases, and looming pandemics. The development of nanotechnology offers a platform for cutting-edge in vivo non-invasive monitoring and point-of-care-testing (POCT) for rehabilitative disease detection and management. The advancement and uses of nanobiosensors are currently becoming more common in a variety of scientific fields, such as environmental monitoring, food safety, biomedical, clinical, and sustainable healthcare sciences, since the advent of nanotechnology. The identification and detection of biological patterns connected to any type of disease (communicable or not) have been made possible in recent years by several sensing techniques utilizing nanotechnology concerning biosensors and nanobiosensors. In this work, 2218 articles are drawn and screened from six digital databases out of which 17 were shortlisted for this review by using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) technique. As a result, this study uses a systematic methodology to review some recently developed extremely sensitive nanobiosensors, along with their biomedical, point-of-care diagnostics (POCD), or healthcare applications and their capabilities, particularly for the prediction of some fatal diseases based on a few of the most recent publications. The potential of nanobiosensors for medicinal, therapeutic, or other sustainable healthcare applications, notably for ailments diagnostics, is also recognized as a way forward in the manifestation of future trends.

Graphical abstract

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Introduction

Implementing rapid judgments based on quick diagnoses, intelligent data analysis, and bioinformatics analysis can help to reach superior benchmarks of health care management, which are essential for delivering better health care. To improve health and wellness, this emphasizes intelligent treatments, analytical equipment, and diagnostics systems (Ekanayake et al., 2023). The advent of intelligent diagnostic tools for personalized wellbeing, especially as point-of-care devices, is essential for the impactful handling of a disease’s course while observing and assessing, which is crucial for epidemic insight and supervision of the disease. By quick biomarker detection close to the patients, point-of-care-testing (POCT) enables better illness diagnosis, monitoring, and management (Kulkarni et al., 2022). One of the key factors in enhancing the effectiveness of any biomedical, diagnostic, or healthcare process is the diagnosis of any disease, whether it be communicable (which results in around 4 million deaths every year worldwide) or non-communicable (which accounts for more than 70% of all deaths globally) (Ukhurebor et al., 2022). The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the lack of availability of healthy food and drinkable water is associated with the majority of human diseases and infections; specifically, the use of unsafe water, primarily from industrial activities, accounts for around 80% of all diseases (Ukhurebor et al., 2021), (Nguyen et al., 2018). Also, it allows for quick medical judgments because early disease diagnosis improves patient health outcomes and permits early treatment for patients. The development of numerous prospective point-of-care tools in recent years has paved the way for the development of next-generation point-of-care testing. Considering they are entirely accountable for the bioanalytical effectiveness of an application, biosensors, which are analytical tools that transform or transform a biological reaction into a measurable signal, are a crucial part of point-of-care devices (Noah and Ndangili, 2019), (Vashist et al., 2015), (Metkar and Girigoswami, 2019). NMs play a crucial role in the development of biosensors with good specificity, uniqueness, and responsiveness by effectively perceiving bio receptors such as microorganisms, enzymes, and antigens. In science and technology, it is essentially unfeasible to carry out any project without using nanomaterials. Due to their distinctive electrical, thermodynamic, chemical, optical, biomechanical, and physical properties, nanomaterials are distinguishable from tiny particles employed in many applications as depicted in Fig. 1. Nano biosensor technology refers to the fusion of biosensors with nanostructured materials. For detecting, monitoring, and analyzing infections, viruses, and pathogens, these little nanobiosensors are transforming the medical field (Aula et al., 2015), (Zhang et al., 2013), (Ghosn et al., 2019). The typical method is, however, arduous, complicated, and time-consuming, and necessitates the use of high-end equipment and trained personnel. Moreover, automation and amalgamating are difficult procedures. As a result, there is a high need for the incorporation of nanobiosensors that may be deployed in conjunction with the POCT module to evaluate actual samples.

The fabrication and implementation of physical, biochemical, and biological systems around the range of 1–100 nm is a component of the subject of nanotechnology, that investigates the modification of matter on the atomic as well as molecular level. These substances, also referred to as NMs or nanoparticles, are revolutionizing science thanks to their superior physical, biological, and biochemical characteristics when compared to their bulk material. They have a vast range of uses, particularly in the fields of biomedicine, optics, medical imaging, catalyst, and electronics (Dey et al., 2022)– (Ahmed et al., 2022). Because of their enhanced catalytic capabilities, electron transition, and capacity to be utilized for biomolecule labeling and adsorption, nanoparticles are well-suited for biosensor applications. Their distinctive physicochemical properties have also given rise to the evolution of sensors, such as nanobiosensors for point-of-care ailment treatment.

The capacity to generate NMs with exceptional and careful quality is required for many application areas due to their special features. To properly and efficiently produce nanomaterials, the aforementioned factors are very important. Bio-molecular electronic devices are predicted to work better with higher selectivity, sensitivity, and particularity, along with the limit of detection thanks to the wise use of nanostructured materials. These NMs can further be classified based upon their dimension as zero dimension for fullerenes and metal carbides classified as quantum dots in which the electron mobility is confined in all three dimensions, for one-dimensional quantum wires are the key representative of nanotubes and filaments as an example for this case. For a two-dimensional structure, the electron moves in an x-y plane making a thin film as the best examples of graphene (Singh et al., 2018) and graphene oxide structures. A structure in which electrons can freely move in all three directions and no dimension is confined to the range of nanoscale is a three-dimensional structure, the examples of which are small nanoclusters and nonporous membranes as can be seen in Fig. 2.

It is being investigated how nanomaterials like nanotubes, nanorods, and quantum dots can be used in biosensor clinical diagnostic systems. Smart biosensors, for example, are new technologies that can detect the micro concentration of the required bio-sample that is more swiftly developing for real-time inspection. This is due to the development in the characteristics of nanomaterials within a nanoscale environment (Velusamy et al., 2010), (Law et al., 2015). In this context, transducer assets that are a key component of the growth of biosensors are frequently derived from nanomaterials. Nanobiosensors can be further categorized into five different types (i) Sample or analyte, (ii) Bioreceptors, (iii) Electrical interface, (iv) Transducers for conversion, and (v) Signal processor with display as depicted in Fig. 3.

In this article, the authors examine the potential applications, benefits, and drawbacks of employing nanobiosensors in the contemporary sustainable healthcare system. Fig. 4 depicts the highlights of the paper’s structure.

The main objective of this systematic literature review is as follows:(a)To discuss and analyze the field of nanotechnology for the efficient utilization of biosensors/nanobiosensors.(b)To detect and identify biomarker signals associated with different diseases by sensing using different nanobiosensors for sustainable healthcare applications.(c)To provide an in-depth analysis of different types of nanobiosensors for early detection and diagnosis of several fatal diseases.(d)To provide insight into the future perspective and advancements in the nanobiosensors for various biomedical field applications such as target drug delivery, nano bionics, and medical implants.

The rest of this review is arranged as follows: Section 2 describes the systematic review method adopted to carry out this study. Section 3 presents the classification of nanobiosensors as an integral part of nanotechnology by discussing a few structural types of these modern nanobiosensors in the field of sustainable healthcare applications. Section 4 describes and compares some of the key applications of nanobiosensors in the advancement of the medicinal field for early detection and diagnostic of several fatal diseases. Section 5 presents some of the potential challenges in the field of nanobiosensors. Section 6 concludes the review article with promising direction for the researcher and academician for future research.

Section snippets

Methodology

In this work, 2218 articles are drawn and screened from six digital databases out of which 17 were shortlisted for this review by using the PRISMA technique. In this six digital databases are adequately searched including PubMed, IEEE Xplore, SpringerLink, Scopus digital library, Hindawi, and MDPI. Each digital database is searched for using keywords such as “nanobiosensors” or “biosensors” and “healthcare” or “nanotechnology”. These keywords provide an exhaustive search that reflects some key

Nanobiosensors: the amalgamation of nanotechnology with biosensors

Nanobiosensors are the result of the fusion of nanotechnology with biosensors. The enormous potential of NPs and the promising prospects for utilizing them in the creation of novel sensing systems and enhancing the functionality of biosensors have stoked interest in both research and the development of nanobiosensors. The integration of many scientific domains has recently been expedited by the science of nanotechnology, accelerating the dissolution of barriers between already established

State of the art in nanobiosensors and their applications

Although clinical research is the foundation of a sustainable healthcare system, medical sciences today are heavily reliant on technology. Nanobiosensors are so adaptable and multifunctional that the characterization and interpretation of the notion of how they work leave no room regarding the applications that could potentially be used for them. Biosensors can be utilized for environmental monitoring systems of contaminants (Kuswandi, 2019), toxicants (Kaphle et al., 2018), and physical

Discussion and potential challenges in nanobiosensors

Statistics indicate that by 2030, there will be 8.5 billion people on the planet, and that number will rise steadily to 9.8 billion around 2050. As a result, the healthcare industry may face additional difficulties such as the need for more diagnostic equipment per patient, a scarcity of testing infrastructure, and longer waiting times due to the high demand (Mondal et al., 2022), (Chowdhury et al., 2017), (Paliwal et al., 2014). Also, the expenses of diagnostic tests may rise by a factor of

Conclusion and future scope

The objective of nanobiosensor research is to provide innovative methods for detection and scanning in the biomedical, pharmaceutical, environmental, farming, and food sectors. The development of nanoscale devices has recently become a popular research topic. Nanotechnology is an incredibly quick scientific field that seeks to transform every element of human life, and healthcare is among its primary fields. The idea of inserting nanoscale devices into the human body is currently in progress

Funding

No funds, grants, or other support were received.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Sunil Kumar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft. Harbinder Singh: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing – original draft, Supervision. Joanna Feder-Kubis:Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Nguyen D. Duc: Validation, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.Recommended articles

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