Inspiration from nature: BioAIEgens for biomedical and sensing applications

Owing to high sensitivity, selectivity, and non-invasiveness, fluorescence has been widely applied in the biomedical and sensing fields. Among the pool of fluorescent probes, luminogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristic exhibit unique strengths in biological applications. However, most reported AIE luminogens (AIEgens) require complicated synthetic procedures, which raise the costs and biocompatibility concerns, especially in biomedical imaging and therapy. In contrast, bioproduct-inspired AIEgens (BioAIEgens) can compensate for the weakness of synthetic AIEgens in terms of their high biocompatibility, low costs, and easy preparation. This review highlights the latest development of BioAIEgens discovered from natural herbs, as well as their potential biomedical and sensing applications. As nature is full of potential resources, studying AIEgens from natural herbs can facilitate the strength of AIE properties in diverse applications and offer more inspiration to the future BioAIEgen structural design and development.