Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, Università di Pisa, Via G. Caruso 16, 56122, Pisa, Italy.
Istituto di Fisiologia Clinica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, via G. Moruzzi 1, 56124, Pisa, Italy.
Adv Healthc Mater. 2015 Dec 9;4(17):2606-40. doi: 10.1002/adhm.201500450. Epub 2015 Oct 6.
A novel trend is rapidly emerging in the use of microneedles, which are a miniaturized replica of hypodermic needles with length-scales of hundreds of micrometers, aimed at the transdermal biosensing of analytes of clinical interest, e.g., glucose, biomarkers, and others. Transdermal biosensing via microneedles offers remarkable opportunities for moving biosensing technologies and biochips from research laboratories to real-field applications, and envisages easy-to-use point-of-care microdevices with pain-free, minimally invasive, and minimal-training features that are very attractive for both developed and emerging countries. In addition to this, microneedles for transdermal biosensing offer a unique possibility for the development of biochips provided with end-effectors for their interaction with the biological system under investigation. Direct and efficient collection of the biological sample to be analyzed will then become feasible in situ at the same length-scale of the other biochip components by minimally trained personnel and in a minimally invasive fashion. This would eliminate the need for blood extraction using hypodermic needles and reduce, in turn, related problems, such as patient infections, sample contaminations, analysis artifacts, etc. The aim here is to provide a thorough and critical analysis of state-of-the-art developments in this novel research trend, and to bridge the gap between microneedles and biosensors.
一种新的趋势正在迅速出现，即使用微针，微针是一种微型化的皮下注射器复制物，长度尺度为数百微米，旨在用于经皮生物传感分析临床感兴趣的分析物，例如葡萄糖、生物标志物等。通过微针进行经皮生物传感为将生物传感技术和生物芯片从研究实验室转移到实际应用领域提供了显著的机会，并设想了易于使用的即时护理微设备，具有无痛、微创和低培训要求的特点，对发达国家和新兴国家都非常有吸引力。此外，用于经皮生物传感的微针为生物芯片的开发提供了独特的可能性，这些生物芯片配备了用于与所研究的生物系统相互作用的末端执行器。然后，通过经过最少培训的人员以微创的方式，可以在原位以与其他生物芯片组件相同的长度尺度直接且高效地收集要分析的生物样本。这将消除使用皮下注射器进行血液提取的需要，并相应减少患者感染、样品污染、分析伪影等相关问题。这里的目的是对这一新颖研究趋势的最新进展进行全面和批判性的分析，并弥合微针和生物传感器之间的差距。
