Advances in functional hydrogel materials for biosensing
Yavari et al.
The finding, in our words
Functional hydrogels provide customizable matrices for biosensing, with recent advances in molecularly programmable networks for analyte recognition and microneedles that access interstitial fluid minimally invasively. Their sensing performance depends on network characteristics such as crosslinking density and chemical composition, suggesting potential for robust decentralised diagnostics in real-world applications.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
A microneedle wearable biosensor continuously measured levodopa in interstitial fluid of Parkinson's patients and healthy volunteers, showing a 9.64% mean absolute relative difference against plasma HPLC measurements after calibration. The temporal drug profiles inversely correlated with motor performance, demonstrating potential for real-time therapeutic drug monitoring to guide dosing without repeated venous sampling.
Reynoso et al., ACS sensors (paywalled) · source ↗
Wearable biochemical monitoring requires a complete measurement chain that integrates quality-controlled biofluid sampling, sensor fusion and metadata capture to convert raw sensor outputs into clinically valid digital biomarkers.
Salivary cortisol is suitable as an adjunctive measure in decentralised monitoring, with lateral-flow assays providing rapid low-cost discrete measurements and wearable platforms enabling higher-frequency collection but facing biofouling and calibration challenges. Suitability requires validation in authentic saliva against reference methods, not merely low detection limits.
Over-the-counter continuous glucose monitors demonstrated reasonable agreement with overall capillary blood glucose trends in individuals without diabetes, yielding an overall mean absolute relative difference of 12.9%. However, sensor accuracy decreased following carbohydrate consumption, suggesting caution is required when using these devices for diagnostic cut-offs or exact-value monitoring.
Prakash et al., Journal of diabetes science and technology (paywalled) · source ↗
Microneedle patches for interstitial-fluid sampling and wearable biosensing face barriers of manufacturing scalability, reproducibility, standardised characterisation and regulatory approval; the review maps these against emerging smart-material and closed-loop opportunities to guide clinical translation.