Nanotechnology-Based Biosensors: Applications in Cancer and Neurodegeneration

Dear Colleagues,

The interest in personalised medicine is assuming a fundamental role in clinical environments. The possibility to define an ad-hoc treatment based on a personalised diagnosis for each single patient has demonstrated to improve remarkably the clinical outcome for patients, compared to the one-fits-all approach that is based on large population averages. Two fields where precision medicine is going to drastically improve the ability in early detection and accuracy and efficiency of therapies are certainly cancer and neurodegeneration. Both diseases are strongly rooted in society and represent a heavy burden for millions of people worldwide every year. While the fight to cancer is well-known since decades and astonishing results have been already obtained in terms of patients’ survival rate and lifestyle, more recently studies and clinical trials on neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease) are increasing remarkably, leading towards new therapies, drugs and vaccines to eradicate or mitigate the effects of such diseases and their impact on patients’ life. Nanotechnologies are demonstrating to represent a perfect tool in this field, because they enable the access to the molecular and genetic information customised for the individual patient, in order to predict or promptly detect the presence of the disease since early stages or its progression before leading, for instance, to metastasis in cancer or severe dementia in Alzheimer’s disease. The main advantage offered by biosensors based on nanotechnologies is the high values of sensitivity and resolution. Moreover, the possibility to control and use a large number of sensors for the detection of multiple biological targets in parallel, ability maximised in particular with optically and electrically-based detection schemes with hundreds of sensors integrated on the same chip, enhances the multiplexing capability with a strong impact on the diagnostic accuracy. This Special Issue will focus on the latest advances in biosensors based on nanotechnologies used in studies for cancer and neurodegeneration aiming at defining the roadmap of the next generation of biosensors to apply either in clinical applications and home-tests. Both review articles and novel research papers are solicited, covering the following areas:

• Novel biosensors to optimise the sensitivity, accuracy and precision of biomedical analysis and diagnostics, including different sensing modalities, e.g. optical, electric, microfluidic, magnetic, acoustic.
• Biosensors used for fundamental research in cancer and neurodegeneration studies, aiming at defining new therapies, drugs and vaccines in this field.
• Biosensors and point-of-care devices applied in clinical trials to analyse the response of patients to different drugs and treatments, aiming at improving the promptness and efficiency.
• New strategies to integrate biosensors in portable instruments to facilitate their use by non-expert users with cost-efficient solutions.
• The combination of different sensing modalities accessing a multiparameter and multiplexed sensing, in order to improve the diagnostic accuracy and provide a detail insight in the disease stage and progression.

Dr. Donato Conteduca
Guest Editor

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