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.