Title:Sol-Gel-Based Biosensing Applied to Medicinal Science
VOLUME: 15 ISSUE: 3
Author(s):Felismina T. C. Moreira, Ana P. Moreira-Tavares and M. Goreti F. Sales
Affiliation:BioMark Sensor Research, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, R. Dr. Antonio Bernardino de Almeida, 431, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal.
Keywords:Biomimetics, Biosensors, Delivery, Encapsulation, Medical use, Regeneration, Sol-gel.
Abstract:Biosensors have opened new horizons in biomedical analysis, by ensuring increased assay
speed and flexibility, and allowing point-of-care applications, multi-target analyses, automation and reduced
costs of testing. This has been a result of many studies merging nanotechnology with biochemistry
over the years, thereby enabling the creation of more suitable environments to biological receptors and
their substitution by synthetic analogue materials. Sol-gel chemistry, among other materials, is deeply involved
in this process. Sol-gel processing allows the immobilization of organic molecules, biomacromolecules
and cells maintaining their properties and activities, permitting their integration into different transduction devices,
of electrochemical or optical nature, for single or multiple analyses. Sol-gel also allows to the production of synthetic
materials mimicking the activity of natural receptors, while bringing advantages, mostly in terms of cost and stability.
Moreover, the biocompatibility of sol-gel materials structures of biological nature allowed the use of these materials in
emerging in vivo applications. In this chapter, biosensors for biomedical applications based on sol-gel derived composites
are presented, compared and described, along with current emerging applications in vivo, concerning drug delivery or
biomaterials. Sol-gel materials are shown as a promising tool for current, emerging and future medical applications.
