Bacteria-based cancer therapy: Looking forward.

The field of bacteria-based cancer therapy, which focuses on the key role played by the prevalence of bacteria, specifically in tumors, in controlling potential targets for cancer therapy, has grown enormously over the past few decades. In this review, we discuss, for the first time, the global cancer situation and the timeline for using bacteria in cancer therapy. We also explore how interdisciplinary collaboration has contributed to the evolution of bacteria-based cancer therapies. Additionally, we address the challenges that need to be overcome for bacteria-based cancer therapy to be accepted in clinical trials and the latest advancements in the field. The groundbreaking technologies developed through bacteria-based cancer therapy have opened up new therapeutic strategies for a wide range of therapeutics in cancer.

Electrochemical impedance-based biosensor for label-free determination of plasma P-tau181 levels for clinically accurate diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

Plasma phosphorylated-tau threonine 181 (p-tau181) is a promising biomarker for predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is the symptomatic pre-dementia stage of AD. To date, there are limitations in the current diagnosis and classification of the two stages of MCI and AD in clinical practice remain a dilemma. In this study, we aimed to discriminate and diagnose patients with MCI, AD, and healthy participants based on the accurate, label-free, and ultrasensitive detection of p-tau181 levels in human clinical plasma samples using our developed electrochemical impedance-based biosensor, which allows to detect p-tau181 at a very low concentration of 0.92 fg mL-1. Human plasma samples were collected from 20 patients with AD, 20 patients with MCI, and 20 individuals with healthy control. The change in charge-transfer resistance of the developed impedance-based biosensor caused by capturing p-tau181 in plasma samples was recorded to evaluate the determination of plasma p-tau181 levels in human clinical samples for discrimination and diagnosis of AD, MCI, and healthy control individuals, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, a standard analysis to judge the clinically diagnostic capability of our biosensor platform based on the estimated levels of plasma p-tau181, resulted a sensitivity of 95%, a specificity of 85%, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of 0.94 of the accuracy for discriminating AD patients from healthy controls; a sensitivity of 70%, a specificity of 70%, the AUC of 0.75 to discriminate MCI patients from healthy controls. Statistical analysis (one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)) was used to compare the estimated plasma p-tau181 levels in clinical samples, indicated significantly higher for AD patients with healthy controls (***p ≤ 0.001), AD with MCI patients (***p ≤ 0.001), and MCI patients with healthy controls (*p ≤ 0.05), respectively. In addition, we compared our sensor to the global cognitive function scales and discovered that it performed noticeably improvement in diagnosing the stages of AD. These results demonstrated the good application of our developed electrochemical impedance-based biosensor in the identification of clinical disease stages. Moreover, in this study, a small dissociation constant (KD) of 0.533 pM was first determined to evaluate the high binding affinity between the p-tau181 biomarker and its antibody, providing a reference parameter for future studies of the p-tau181 biomarker and AD.

Using Nanomaterials for SARS-CoV-2 Sensing via Electrochemical Techniques.

Advancing low-cost and user-friendly innovations to benefit public health is an important task of scientific and engineering research. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), electrochemical sensors are being developed for low-cost SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis, particularly in resource-limited settings. Nanostructures with sizes ranging from 10 nm to a few micrometers could deliver optimum electrochemical behavior (e.g., quick response, compact size, sensitivity and selectivity, and portability), providing an excellent alternative to the existing techniques. Therefore, nanostructures, such as metal, 1D, and 2D materials, have been successfully applied in in vitro and in vivo detection of a wide range of infectious diseases, particularly SARS-CoV-2. Electrochemical detection methods reduce the cost of electrodes, provide analytical ability to detect targets with a wide variety of nanomaterials, and are an essential strategy in biomarker sensing as they can rapidly, sensitively, and selectively detect SARS-CoV-2. The current studies in this area provide fundamental knowledge of electrochemical techniques for future applications.

Clinical Utility of Biosensing Platforms for Confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Despite collaborative efforts from all countries, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been continuing to spread globally, forcing the world into social distancing period, making a special challenge for public healthcare system. Before vaccine widely available, the best approach to manage severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is to achieve highest diagnostic accuracy by improving biosensor efficacy. For SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics, intensive attempts have been made by many scientists to ameliorate the drawback of current biosensors of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical diagnosis to offer benefits related to platform proposal, systematic analytical methods, system combination, and miniaturization. This review assesses ongoing research efforts aimed at developing integrated diagnostic tools to detect RNA viruses and their biomarkers for clinical diagnostics of SARS-CoV-2 infection and further highlights promising technology for SARS-CoV-2 specific diagnosis. The comparisons of SARS-CoV-2 biomarkers as well as their applicable biosensors in the field of clinical diagnosis were summarized to give scientists an advantage to develop superior diagnostic platforms. Furthermore, this review describes the prospects for this rapidly growing field of diagnostic research, raising further interest in analytical technology and strategic plan for future pandemics.

Magnetic Particles: Their Applications from Sample Preparations to Biosensing Platforms.

The growing interest in magnetic materials as a universal tool has been shown by an increasing number of scientific publications regarding magnetic materials and its various applications. Substantial progress has been recently made on the synthesis of magnetic iron oxide particles in terms of size, chemical composition, and surface chemistry. In addition, surface layers of polymers, silica, biomolecules, etc., on magnetic particles, can be modified to obtain affinity to target molecules. The developed magnetic iron oxide particles have been significantly utilized for diagnostic applications, such as sample preparations and biosensing platforms, leading to the selectivity and sensitivity against target molecules and the ease of use in the sensing systems. For the process of sample preparations, the magnetic particles do assist in target isolation from biological environments, having non-specific molecules and undesired molecules. Moreover, the magnetic particles can be easily applied for various methods of biosensing devices, such as optical, electrochemical, and magnetic phenomena-based methods, and also any methods combined with microfluidic systems. Here we review the utilization of magnetic materials in the isolation/preconcentration of various molecules and cells, and their use in various techniques for diagnostic biosensors that may greatly contribute to future innovation in point-of-care and high-throughput automation systems.

2D Materials in Development of Electrochemical Point-of-Care Cancer Screening Devices.

Effective cancer treatment requires early detection and monitoring the development progress in a simple and affordable manner. Point-of care (POC) screening can provide a portable and inexpensive tool for the end-users to conveniently operate test and screen their health conditions without the necessity of special skills. Electrochemical methods hold great potential for clinical analysis of variety of chemicals and substances as well as cancer biomarkers due to their low cost, high sensitivity, multiplex detection ability, and miniaturization aptitude. Advances in two-dimensional (2D) material-based electrochemical biosensors/sensors are accelerating the performance of conventional devices toward more practical approaches. Here, recent trends in the development of 2D material-based electrochemical biosensors/sensors, as the next generation of POC cancer screening tools, are summarized. Three cancer biomarker categories, including proteins, nucleic acids, and some small molecules, will be considered. Various 2D materials will be introduced and their biomedical applications and electrochemical properties will be given. The role of 2D materials in improving the performance of electrochemical sensing mechanisms as well as the pros and cons of current sensors as the prospective devices for POC screening will be emphasized. Finally, the future scopes of implementing 2D materials in electrochemical POC cancer diagnostics for the clinical translation will be discussed.