9^th Euro Biosensors & Bioelectronics Congress November 29-30, 2018 Dublin, Ireland

Bio-sensing technologies are of increasing importance in healthcare, agri-food, environmental and security sectors, and this is reflected in the continued growth of global markets for such technologies. Biomechanics is closely related to engineering, because it often uses traditional engineering sciences to analyze biological systems. Some simple applications of Newtonian mechanics and/or materials sciences can supply correct approximations to the mechanics of many biological systems. Reliable methodologies are needed for point and stand-off detection of chemical, biological, radiological, special nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) materials. These technological needs are not universally military in nature. For example, there is pervasive interest among diverse disciplines such as medicine, law enforcement, explosive ordinance disposal, Natural environmental protection, industrial manufacturing and food processing in being able to develop capabilities for the rapid detection and identification capabilities for various biochemical markers. The major features required to develop a commercially successful bio-sensing technology are represented as follows: 1. Novel biomarkers 2. Biosensor surfaces 3. Novel detection technologies 4. Instrumentation and Integration 5. Commercialization and impact

Electrochemical biosensors are usually supported protein enzymatic catalysis of a reaction that produces or consumes electrons (such enzymes are justly known as oxidoreduction enzymes). An enzyme biosensor is an analytical device that combines an enzyme with a transducer to produce a signal proportional to target analyte concentration. This signal can result from a change in proton concentration, release or uptake of gases, such as ammonia or oxygen, light emission, absorption or reflectance, heat emission, and so forth, brought about by the reaction catalyzed by the enzyme. Enzyme - based sensors are more specific than cell based sensors. They have faster responds due to shorter diffusion paths. They are expensive to produce due to the problem of isolating the enzyme. Optimal enzyme activity is essential for maintenance of physiological homeostasis. Both non-genetic and genetic disruptions can excessively activate or silence intrinsic enzyme activities, with pathological outcomes. The pharmacological agents are activators and inhibitors of enzymes. It is essential in the development of drugs as enzyme activators and inhibitors that enzyme activities be accurately measured under physiological and pathological conditions. The coupling of enzymes with electrochemical sensors permits the simple determination of metabolites, therapeutic drugs, antigens, and antibodies.

Biosensors are devices globalizing a biological element and a physiochemical detector that are used to detect analytes. The biosensor products have a wide range of their applications ranging from numerous industries including food and beverages, agricultural, environmental, medical diagnostics, pharmaceutical industries, clinical through to environmental and agriculture and many more. Even though numerous biosensors have been developed for detection of proteins, peptides, enzymes, and numerous other biomolecules for diverse applications, their applications in tissue engineering have remained limited. Graphene based enzymatic and non-enzymatic electrodes can efficiently detect glucose, cytochrome-c, NADH, hemoglobin, HRP, and cholesterol, hydrogen peroxide, AA, UA, DA, respectively. Nano capsules are Nano scale shells made out of a nontoxic polymer. They are vesicular systems that are made up of a polymeric membrane which encapsulates an inner liquid core at the Nano scale level. Nano capsules have a myriad of uses, which include promising medical applications for drug delivery, food enhancement, nutraceuticals, and for the self-healing of materials.

A hypothetical computer logic circuit or storage device in which the physical or chemical properties of large biological molecules (as proteins) are used to process information. A Biochip is a combination of minute DNA spots hooked up to a hard surface. Scientists use DNA Biochips to check the expression levels of huge number of genes at the same time. Each DNA spot contains Pico moles of a précised DNA sequence known as a probe. These can be tiny section of a gene or a DNA particle that are used to cross breed a DNA or RNA. Immunosensors are built by means of the appropriate combination of the biomolecules with the transducers used together; they can be applied in specific analytical situations. Immunosensors commonly rely on the reuse of the same receptor surface for many measurements. Aptamers are oligonucleotide or peptide molecules that bind to a specific target molecule. Aptamers are usually created by selecting them from a large random sequence pool, but natural aptamers also exist in riboswitches.

Optical biosensors are those based on the detection of changes on absorption of UV/visible/Infrared light when chemical reactions occur or on the quantity of light emitted by some luminescent process. A piezoelectric sensor works with the properties of piezoelectric effect, which can vary in changing pressure, acceleration, temperature, strain, or force by converting them to an electrical charge. It can be applicable with medical, aerospace and nuclear instrumentation. Piezoelectric sensor acts as a pressure sensor in the touch pads of mobile phones. Gravimetric biosensor varies under piezoelectric biosensor and it uses thin piezoelectric quartz crystals as resonating crystals or as surface acoustic wave devices.

Biomedical engineering (BME) is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g. diagnostic or therapeutic). This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to advance health care treatment, including diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy. To ensure that good quality assurance practices are used for the design of medical devices and that they are consistent with quality system requirements worldwide, the Food and Drug Administration revised the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) requirements by incorporating them into the Quality System Regulation, 21 CFR Part 820. An important component of the revision is the addition of design controls.

Bioelectronics is a field of investigation in the conflux of biology and electronics. Biological properties can be measured and altered using electronics, magnetics, photonics, sensors, circuits, and algorithms. Bio molecular Electronics is a branch of Nano-science and technology dealing with the investigation and the technological exploitation of electron transport properties in special classes of biomolecules. Bioelectronics, specifically bio-molecular electronics, were described as 'the research and development of bio-inspired (i.e. self-assembly) inorganic and organic materials and of bio-inspired (i.e. massive parallelism) hardware architectures for the implementation of new information processing systems, sensors and actuators, and for molecular manufacturing down to the atomic scale. Biomedicine is a branch of medical sciences that deals with applying biological and natural science principles to clinical practices. It studies our ability to cope with the environmental changes.

Nanotechnology is pretending an increasingly important role in the expansion of biosensors. Biosensors frequently comprise a biological recognition molecule immobilized onto the surface of a signal transducer to give a solid state analytical device. The use of nanomaterial’s has acknowledged the establishment of many new signal transduction technologies in biosensors through nanotechnology. Nanolithography is the branch of nanotechnology afflicted with the study and application of the nanofabrication of nanometer-scale structures, meaning Nano patterning with at least one lateral dimension between the size of an individual atom and generally 100 nm. Nanosensors are chemical or mechanical sensors that can be used to detect the presence of chemical species and nanoparticles, or monitor physical parameters such as temperature, on the Nano scale. Nano photonics is the new emerging paradigm where light interacts with Nano-scaled structures and brings forth the mysterious world to research.

A bio transducer is the recognition-transduction component of a biosensor system. It consists of two intimately coupled parts; a bio-recognition layer and a physicochemical transducer, which acting together converts a biochemical signal to an electronic or optical signal. Electronic Biosensing offers significant advantages over optical, biochemical and biophysical analysis, in terms of high sensitivity and new sensing mechanisms, high spatial resolution for localized detection, facile integration with standard water-scale semiconductor processing and label-free, real-time detection in a nondestructive manner. Gravimetric biosensors use the basic principle of a response to a change in mass. Most gravimetric biosensors use thin piezoelectric quartz crystals, either as resonating crystals (QCM), or as bulk/surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. Pyro electric biosensors generate an electric current as a result of a temperature change. This differential induces a polarization in the substance, producing a dipole moment in the direction of the temperature gradient. The result is a net voltage across the material.

Micro-/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) micro-/nanoelectromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS) need to be designed to perform expected functions in short durations, typically in the millisecond to picosecond range. Most mechanical properties are known to be scale dependent, therefore the properties of nanoscale structures need to be measured. For bioMEMS/bioNEMS, bioMEMS/bioNEMS adhesion between biological molecular layer molecular layers and the substrate, and friction and wear of biological layers, can be important. Bionics is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology Bionics means the replacement or enhancement of organs or other body parts by mechanical versions. Bionic implants differ from mere prostheses by mimicking the original function very closely, or even surpassing it. Bio robotics is the use of biological characteristics in living organisms as the knowledge base for developing new robot designs. The term can also refer to the use of biological specimens as functional robot components. Bio robotics intersects the fields of cybernetics, bionics, biology, physiology, and genetic engineering.

The field of optical biosensors has been a growing research area over the last three decades. A wide range of books and review articles has been published by experts in the field who have highlighted the advantages of optical sensing over other transduction methods. Fluorescence is by far the method most often applied and comes in a variety of schemes. Nowadays, one of the most common approaches in the field of optical biosensors is to combine the high sensitivity of fluorescence detection in combination with the high selectivity provided by ligand-binding proteins. In this chapter we deal with reviewing our recent results on the implementation of fluorescence-based sensors for monitoring environmentally hazardous gas molecules. Medical Image Analysis provides a forum for the dissemination of new research results in the field of medical and biological image analysis, with special emphasis on efforts related to the applications of high-level computer vision, virtual reality and robotics to biomedical imaging problems

Photonic Sensing focuses on experimental contributions related to novel principles, and structures or materials for photonic sensors. Optical fibers can be used as sensors to measure strain, temperature, pressure and other quantities by modifying a fiber so that the quantity to be measured modulates the intensity, phase, polarization and wavelength or transit time of light in the fiber. Sensors that vary the intensity of light are the simplest, since only a simple source and detector are required. A particularly useful feature of intrinsic optical fiber sensors is that they can, if required, provide distributed sensing over very large distances. Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are optically active integrated semiconductor photonic devices which consist of at least two different functional blocks, (gain region and a grating based mirror in a laser...). These devices are responsible for commercial successes of optical communications and the ability to increase the available bandwidth without significant cost increases to the end user, through improved performance and cost reduction that they provide. The most widely deployed PICs are based on Indium phosphide material system. Silicon photonics is an active area of research.

The majority of reported biosensor research has been directed toward development of devices for clinical markets; however, driven by a need for better methods for environmental surveillance, research into this technology is also expanding to encompass environmental applications. Biosensors are biophysical devices which can detect the presence of specific substances e.g. sugars, proteins, hormones, pollutants and a variety of toxins in the environment. They are also capable of measuring the quantities of these specific substances in the environment.

Biosensors companies and market analysis explains us the most significant changes in the global narket. The single commercially most successful environmental biosensor is the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) sensor. The total market was valued at $11.39 Billion in 2013 and is expected to reach $22.68 Billion by 2020, at an estimated CAGR of 10.00% from 2014 to 2020. The report also discusses the future of the global market with road-map, upcoming technologies, markets, and applications with respect to biosensors.

Market by Product: The market by product type includes wearable and non-wearable biosensors. The wearable biosensors are further segmented as wrist wear, eye wear, foot wear, neck wear, body wear, and others (ingestible and smart implants).

Market by Technology: The technology market includes electrochemical biosensors, piezoelectric biosensors, optical biosensors, thermal biosensors, and others (Luminometric and fiber optics).

Market by Application: The biosensors market is mainly categorized into applications, such as the point-of-care, home diagnostics, research labs, biodefense, environmental monitoring, and food industries.