Wearable microfluidic immunosensors for point-of-care detection of bio-analytes: a critical review

Early and timely disease diagnosis is crucial for effective treatment and improved clinical outcomes. Antibodies and their fragments are among the most widely used affinity reagents in point-of-care (POC) assays because of their target specificity and affinity. Traditional immunosensors, the analytical devices utilizing antibodies as the biorecognition elements, are time-consuming and require advanced lab settings, limiting their use in POC testing. Recent research focuses on developing specific, portable, and cost-effective miniaturized diagnostic tests for various applications. Wearable immunosensors offer rapid, specific, and affordable solutions, especially in remote settings. However, they fall short in manipulating low-volume samples and multiplex detection of bioanalytes. Integrating these assays with micro/nanofabrication technologies would be beneficial to patient care because the various laboratory assays can be miniaturized and incorporated into a lab-on-a-body. This review aims to outline recent progress in developing wearable immunosensors and highlight the utility of these assays in detecting bio-analytes. Furthermore, prospects, opportunities, and remaining challenges within this research area are presented to facilitate their translation into clinical settings.