Microsystems for Point-of-Care Testing and Diagnostics
A special issue of Micromachines (ISSN 2072-666X). This special issue belongs to the section "B：Biology and Biomedicine".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2025
Special Issue Editor
Interests: micro and nanofabrication; microfluidics; lab-on-chip; point-of-care diagnostic; pattern recognition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Point-of-care (POC) testing offers the opportunity to move healthcare away from the symptomatic treatment of diseases towards more predictive, preventive and personalised medicine. POC testing has advantages over centralised rapid analysis laboratories with no requirement for expensive capital infrastructure or staff with specialist technical expertise. These devices are applicable in a variety of settings including within primary, secondary and tertiary care as well as within low- to medium-income countries (LMICs).
Some micro-nano technologies such as sensors and microfluidics are widely used in the POC field. These include the use of breath analysis for non-invasive diagnosis, microneedle devices for minimally invasive sampling, and the integration of wearables for continuous health monitoring. Additionally, digital microfluidics is emerging as a key technology, allowing for precise control of microliter-scale fluid volumes, which is crucial for miniaturized POC tests. The development of multiplexing capabilities enables the detection of various analytes simultaneously, increasing the diagnostic power of POC devices. A wide range of advances—including in assays, transducers, microfluidics, and device fabrication, connected instrumentation and data analytics—has allowed the development of a variety of applications including for chronic and infectious disease conditions. These advances are reflected in an increasing number of scientific publications, patents and commercial products that demonstrate high sensitivity, selectivity and reliability, as well as fast, accurate, cost-effective and user-friendly assays.
On this research topic, we welcome review articles and original research papers aimed at the related key issues of basic research, material development, system integration and data management with new POC diagnostic technologies in the frame of emerging and demanding clinical and biotechnological applications.
Prof. Dr. Zulfiqur Ali
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- point-of-care testing/diagnostics
- microfluidics
- biosensors
- wearables
- digital microfluidics
- paper-based diagnostics
- lab-on-a-chip
- rapid diagnostics
- cancer detection
- infectious and chronic diseases
- data analytics
- device fabrication
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Related Special Issue
- Microsystems for Point-of-Care Testing in Micromachines (9 articles)
