MEMS Biosensors and COVID-19: Missed Opportunity

The acceleration of climatic, digital, and health challenges is testing scientific communities. Scientists must provide concrete answers in terms of technological solutions to a society which expects immediate returns on the public investment. We are living such a scenario on a global scale with the pandemic crisis of COVID-19 where expectations for virological and serological diagnosis tests have been and are still gigantic. In this Perspective, we focus on a class of biosensors (mechanical biosensors) which are ubiquitous in the literature in the form of high performance, sensitive, selective, low-cost biological analysis systems. The spectacular development announced in their performance in the last 20 years suggested the possibility of finding these mechanical sensors on the front line of COVID-19, but the reality was quite different. We analyze the cause of this rendez-vous manqué, the operational criteria that kept these biosensors away from the field, and we indicate the pitfalls to avoid in the future in the development of all types of biosensors of which the ultimate goal is to be immediately operational for the intended application.