Electrospinning: A versatile technology to design biosensors and sensors for diagnostics

This chapter gives a brief description of the recent results related to electrospun nanodevices designed and investigated to create novel and advanced diagnostic tools to prevent disease progression and to allow a proper and prompt therapeutic treatment. Electrospun nanofibers have been confirmed to be an exceptional support for these detecting tools, due to their uniqueness in morphology and fibrous arrangements and to the great versatility of the ES technology in creating advanced and sophisticated sensing layers compatible with electronics and electronic nanodevices. Together with a great number of novel sensors for early detecting pathologies markers in the blood, also sensors for more noninvasive diagnostics systems are getting increasingly popular in the scientific community and on market (e.g., breath and skin monitoring) and routine analysis. Furthermore, emerging analysis methods and the development of accurate detection techniques for biomarkers provide a bright perspective for diagnosing different diseases using exhaled-breath analysis. In particular, electronic noses, which are composed of cross sensitive sensor arrays with pattern recognition algorithms, show several advantages compared with other types of analyzing equipment with respect to portability and cost-effectiveness for handheld breath analysis devices. These studies reported that ES sensors exhibit exciting performances in health disease monitoring. According to recent literature, sensing is an area where electrospun nanofibers technologies are a great promise for industry. Despite the great potential of electrospun nanofibers, the number of commercialized products remains extremely limited. Probably, up to now, one reason for this lack of commercialization was due to the small scale at which nanofibers could be produced using the conventional electrospinning method, which limited its use to the production of small samples within laboratories. However, the growing interest to the ES potentials, through funded projects that have facilitated the cooperation of academic world with industry, is pushing start-ups and large multinationals to recognize the commercial potential of electrospun products beyond laboratory setup. Thus, a number of companies have attempted to address the problem of nanofibers production rates and have developed new methods, adapted from conventional electrospinning, which are capable of significantly faster production than methods previously reported within academia. With these new technological advancements, the potential for the use of electrospun nanofibers in industrial applications has become more achievable, and there are a growing number of companies being formed to develop an industry for nanofibers use. Leading players in the market include Donaldson, DuPont, Ahlstrom, Hollingsworth & Vose, Johns Manville, Kuraray, Mitsubishi Rayon, Teijin, and Toray, but innovative up and coming companies involved in both the production and application of nanofibers are emerging. Significant examples comprise Elmarco, FibeRio Technology Corporation, Finetex EnE, BioInicia, Linari Engineering Srl, Nanopharma, and Revolution Fibres Ltd. Cooperation among companies is providing successfully results. For instance, whereas functionalization of the sensing material's surface is required to impart the desired reactivity, a promising R&D collaboration, KODE Biotech Ltd (New Zealand) with Revolution Fibres reported the benefits of biofunctionalization technique with mass-produced electrospun nanofibers demonstrating the potential to revolutionize diagnostic kits worldwide--making them simple to use, simple to manufacture, and easy to be used.