Sensing and Characterization of Biosensors, Materials and Biological Tissues

A special issue of Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354). This special issue belongs to the section "Biosignal Processing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 November 2022) | Viewed by 16256

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Innovation Engineering (DII), University of Salento, Via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Interests: fault detection; sensor technologies; measurement techniques; monitoring and measurement systems; testing and characterization components; systems and monitoring equipment
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Guest Editor
Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Interests: biomaterials; scaffold; tissue engineering; material characterization; viscoelasticity; hydrogels; green chemistry; natural polymers
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Electric, chemical and mechanical properties are fundamental characteristics of materials, especially in the field of biomedical and biological applicative contexts, where their characterization is of the utmost importance for assessing performance, compatibility, resistance or other types of properties.

At the state of the art, there are different methods, systems and sensing equipment that can be used to measure specific properties of materials. By contrast, the choice of the system depends on the nature of the material (e.g., liquid, granular, solid). Additionally, the final accuracy of results and costs influence the suitability of systems. As a result, the scientific community is still challenged by the need to investigate innovative solutions that could offer a trade-off of cost, accuracy and applicative performance.

In addition to this, the importance of measuring properties goes beyond the characterization of a material; in fact, characteristics are often measured to infer other properties (not necessarily electric) of the system under test. For example, in the medical industry, material properties are important for assessing the quality or the compatibility with biological environments.

This Special Issue is aimed at collecting the recent progress in the characterization of materials with both conventional and unconventional techniques, including (but not limited to) biomaterials and biological tissues. We encourage submissions covering key aspects of biosensors, including design, characterization and application-focused research.

Starting from these considerations, this Special Issue is open to research and review contributions related to 1) innovative methods and systems for the characterization of properties of materials and 2) innovative sensing and monitoring systems that resort to measurement of properties to retrieve other information on the system under test.

The list of topics includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Enhancement of the accuracy of existing measurement systems;
  • Development and validation of innovative models;
  • Development of innovative sensing systems, methods and monitoring systems for characterizing tissues or biomedical materials.

Prof. Dr. Andrea Cataldo
Dr. Christian Demitri
Prof. Dr. Egidio De Benedetto
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • sensors
  • wearable devices
  • biosensors
  • biomedical detection
  • monitoring and instrumentation
  • biomedical signal processing
  • biomedical diagnostics
  • biomedical and biomaterial measurements
  • scaffold
  • tissue engineering
  • material characterization
  • cyber–physical measurement systems
  • augmented reality

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 1908 KiB  
Article
Determination of a Measurement Procedure for the Study of Cells’ Dielectric Properties through Descriptive Statistic
by Livio D’Alvia, Barbara Peruzzi, Ludovica Apa, Zaccaria Del Prete and Emanuele Rizzuto
Bioengineering 2023, 10(8), 907; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10080907 - 31 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1264
Abstract
This paper presents a measurement procedure for analyzing the dielectric properties of cells using descriptive statistics. The study focuses on four cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast cancer, SaOS-2, and 143B osteosarcoma) and DMEM culture medium, utilizing the Lorentzian fit model of [...] Read more.
This paper presents a measurement procedure for analyzing the dielectric properties of cells using descriptive statistics. The study focuses on four cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast cancer, SaOS-2, and 143B osteosarcoma) and DMEM culture medium, utilizing the Lorentzian fit model of the return-loss function. The measurements are performed using a circular patch resonator with a 40 mm diameter, powered by a miniVNA operating in the frequency range of 1 MHz to 3 GHz. Eight specimens are prepared for each group to ensure reliability, and the return loss is recorded ten times for each specimen. Various statistical parameters are calculated and evaluated, including the average value, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and relative error between the average and the first values. The results demonstrate that one single acquisition highly represents the entire set of ten data points, especially for the resonant frequency, with an accuracy error lower than 0.05%. These findings have significant implications for the methodological approach to detecting cells’ dielectric properties, as they substantially reduce time and preserve the specimens without compromising the accuracy of the experimental results. Full article
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11 pages, 1349 KiB  
Article
Electrocardiography Assessment of Sympatico–Vagal Balance during Resting and Pain Using the Texas Instruments ADS1299
by Donghua Liao, Rasmus B. Nedergaard, Misbah Unnisa, Soumya J. Mahapatra, Mahya Faghih, Anna E. Phillips, Dhiraj Yadav, Vikesh K. Singh, Søren S. Olesen, Rupjyoti Talukdar, Pramod K. Garg, Imran K. Niazi, Christina Brock and Asbjørn M. Drewes
Bioengineering 2023, 10(2), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10020205 - 3 Feb 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2146
Abstract
Sympatico–vagal balance is essential for regulating cardiac electrophysiology and plays an important role in arrhythmogenic conditions. Various noninvasive methods, including electrocardiography (ECG), have been used for clinical assessment of the sympatico–vagal balance. This study aimed to use a custom-designed wearable device to record [...] Read more.
Sympatico–vagal balance is essential for regulating cardiac electrophysiology and plays an important role in arrhythmogenic conditions. Various noninvasive methods, including electrocardiography (ECG), have been used for clinical assessment of the sympatico–vagal balance. This study aimed to use a custom-designed wearable device to record ECG and ECG-based cardiac function biomarkers to assess sympatico–vagal balance during tonic pain in healthy controls. Nineteen healthy volunteers were included for the ECG measurements using the custom-designed amplifier based on the Texas Instruments ADS1299. The ECG-based biomarkers of the sympatico–vagal balance, (including heart rate variability, deceleration capacity of the heart rate, and periodic repolarization dynamic), were calculated and compared between resting and pain conditions (tonic pain). The custom-designed device provided technically satisfactory ECG recordings. During exposure to tonic pain, the periodic repolarization dynamics increased significantly (p = 0.02), indicating enhancement of sympathetic nervous activity. This study showed that custom-designed wearable devices can potentially be useful in healthcare as a new telemetry technology. The ECG-based novel biomarkers, including periodic repolarization dynamic and deceleration capacity of heart rate, can be used to identify the cold pressor-induced activation of sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, making it useful for future studies on pain-evoked biomarkers. Full article
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31 pages, 3107 KiB  
Article
Proof of Concept of Biopolymer Based Hydrogels as Biomimetic Oviposition Substrate to Develop Tiger Mosquitoes (Aedes albopictus) Cost-Effective Lure and Kill Ovitraps
by Marco Friuli, Claudia Cafarchia, Andrea Cataldo, Riccardo Paolo Lia, Domenico Otranto, Marco Pombi and Christian Demitri
Bioengineering 2022, 9(7), 267; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9070267 - 21 Jun 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3600
Abstract
Pest management is looking for green and cost-effective innovative solutions to control tiger mosquitoes and other pests. By using biomimetic principles and biocompatible/biodegradable biopolymers, it could be possible to develop a new approach based on substrates that selectively attract insects by reproducing specific [...] Read more.
Pest management is looking for green and cost-effective innovative solutions to control tiger mosquitoes and other pests. By using biomimetic principles and biocompatible/biodegradable biopolymers, it could be possible to develop a new approach based on substrates that selectively attract insects by reproducing specific natural environmental conditions and then kill them by hosting and delivering a natural biopesticide or through mechanical action (biomimetic lure and kill approach, BL&K). Such an approach can be theoretically specialized against tiger mosquitoes (BL&K-TM) by designing hydrogels to imitate the natural oviposition site’s conditions to employ them inside a lure and kill ovitraps as a biomimetic oviposition substrate. In this work, the hydrogels have been prepared to prove the concept. The study compares lab/on-field oviposition between standard substrates (absorbing paper/masonite) and a physical and chemically crosslinked hydrogel composition panel. Then the best performing is characterized to evaluate a correlation between the hydrogel’s properties and oviposition. Tests identify a 2-Hydroxyethylcellulose (HEC)-based physical hydrogel preparation as five times more attractive than the control in a lab oviposition assay. When employed on the field in a low-cost cardboard trap, the same substrate is seven times more capturing than a standard masonite ovitrap, with a duration four times longer. Full article
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12 pages, 3093 KiB  
Article
Microfluidic-Based Novel Optical Quantification of Red Blood Cell Concentration in Blood Flow
by Yudong Wang, Bharath Babu Nunna, Niladri Talukder and Eon Soo Lee
Bioengineering 2022, 9(6), 247; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9060247 - 8 Jun 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3926
Abstract
The optical quantification of hematocrit (volumetric percentage of red blood cells) in blood flow in microfluidic systems provides enormous help in designing microfluidic biosensing platforms with enhanced sensitivity. Although several existing methods, such as centrifugation, complete blood cell count, etc., have been developed [...] Read more.
The optical quantification of hematocrit (volumetric percentage of red blood cells) in blood flow in microfluidic systems provides enormous help in designing microfluidic biosensing platforms with enhanced sensitivity. Although several existing methods, such as centrifugation, complete blood cell count, etc., have been developed to measure the hematocrit of the blood at the sample preparation stage, these methods are impractical to measure the hematocrit in dynamic microfluidic blood flow cases. An easy-to-access optical method has emerged as a hematocrit quantification technique to address this limitation, especially for the microfluidic-based biosensing platform. A novel optical quantification method is demonstrated in this study, which can measure the hematocrit of the blood flow at a targeted location in a microchannel at any given instant. The images of the blood flow were shot using a high-speed camera through an inverted transmission microscope at various light source intensities, and the grayscale of the images was measured using an image processing code. By measuring the average grayscale of the images of blood flow at different luminous exposures, a relationship between hematocrit and grayscale has been developed. The quantification of the hematocrit in the microfluidic system can be instant and easy with this method. The innovative proposed technique has been evaluated with porcine blood samples with hematocrit ranging from 5% to 70%, flowing through 1000 µm wide and 100 µm deep microchannels. The experimental results obtained strongly supported the proposed optical technique of hematocrit measurement in microfluidic systems. Full article
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Review

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18 pages, 1092 KiB  
Review
Assessment and Scientific Progresses in the Analysis of Olfactory Evoked Potentials
by Pasquale Arpaia, Andrea Cataldo, Sabatina Criscuolo, Egidio De Benedetto, Antonio Masciullo and Raissa Schiavoni
Bioengineering 2022, 9(6), 252; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9060252 - 12 Jun 2022
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 4095
Abstract
The human sense of smell is important for many vital functions, but with the current state of the art, there is a lack of objective and non-invasive methods for smell disorder diagnostics. In recent years, increasing attention is being paid to olfactory event-related [...] Read more.
The human sense of smell is important for many vital functions, but with the current state of the art, there is a lack of objective and non-invasive methods for smell disorder diagnostics. In recent years, increasing attention is being paid to olfactory event-related potentials (OERPs) of the brain, as a viable tool for the objective assessment of olfactory dysfunctions. The aim of this review is to describe the main features of OERPs signals, the most widely used recording and processing techniques, and the scientific progress and relevance in the use of OERPs in many important application fields. In particular, the innovative role of OERPs is exploited in olfactory disorders that can influence emotions and personality or can be potential indicators of the onset or progression of neurological disorders. For all these reasons, this review presents and analyzes the latest scientific results and future challenges in the use of OERPs signals as an attractive solution for the objective monitoring technique of olfactory disorders. Full article
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