Biomimetic strategies for sensing biological species

The starting point of modern biosensing was the application of actual biological species for recognition. Increasing understanding of the principles underlying such recognition (and biofunctionality in general), however, has triggered a dynamic field in chemistry and materials sciences that aims at joining the best of two worlds by combining concepts derived from nature with the processability of manmade materials, e.g., sensitivity and ruggedness. This review covers different biomimetic strategies leading to highly selective (bio)chemical sensors: the first section covers molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) that attempt to generate a fully artificial, macromolecular mold of a species in order to detect it selectively. A different strategy comprises of devising polymer coatings to change the biocompatibility of surfaces that can also be used to immobilized natural receptors/ligands and thus stabilize them. Rationally speaking, this leads to self-assembled monolayers closely resembling cell membranes, sometimes also including bioreceptors. Finally, this review will highlight some approaches to generate artificial analogs of natural recognition materials and biomimetic approaches in nanotechnology. It mainly focuses on the literature published since 2005.