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Materials


with nanomaterials Better biosensing


With their enhanced biological, mechanical and chemical properties, nanomaterials are used in a range of medical devices from artifi cial wound grafts to dental implants. Recently, they’ve become a popular choice for making biosensors, resulting in devices that are signifi cantly more sensitive, have enhanced electrical conductivity, a low response time and more besides. Sachin Rawat speaks to experts in the fi eld to explore how nanomaterials are driving advances in biosensors.


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anomaterials are widely used in medicine. They make up the biocompatible scaffolds in artificial wound grafts, the regenerative coatings in dental implants and many bioelectronic interfaces in other medical devices. Yet in recent years, another use for nanomaterials has come into focus: researchers are developing nanomaterial-based biosensors for applications ranging from diagnosing infectious agents to discovering biomarkers and tracking health metrics like glucose levels.


Traditional biosensors usually suffer from low sensitivity and limited dynamic range. In other words, they perform poorly when the molecule to be detected is present at low concentrations or in too wide a range of concentrations. Applying nanomaterial-based biosensing alleviates these limitations. For one, the surface area-to-volume ratio shoots up astronomically at the nanoscale. This means there’s much more room where the analytes – the substance or chemical compound being measured – can bind. When


Medical Device Developments / www.medicaldevice-developments.com


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