Functionalized Smart Nanomaterials for Point-of-Care Testing

This book highlights the recent advancement in point-of-care testing (POCT) technologies utilizing ‘smart’ nanomaterials for the analysis of biomarkers related to disease, which includes metabolites, enzymes, proteins, nucleic acids, cancer cells and multidrug-resistant pathogen. The POCT refers to medical diagnostic tests performed near the place and time of patient care. During the recent pandemic of COVID-19, many realized the importance of affordable, rapid and accurate POCT devices and their usefulness to combat the spread of the infection. The chapters in this book describe the emergence of ‘smart’ nanomaterials with unique physical and chemical properties being utilized in POCT devices for immobilizing biorecognition elements and labels for signal generation, transduction and amplification. It showcases the applications of these smart nanomaterials and their superiority in developing point-of-care diagnostics devices in a wide range of applied fields like food industry, agriculture sector, water quality assessment, pharmaceuticals and tissue engineering. It also looks into the challenges associated and future direction of research in this promising field. This book caters as reference book for researches from the field of nanobiotechnology and biomedical sciences who are interested in the development of rapid, affordable and accurate POCT devices.