Application of smart materials in biosensors for cancer diagnosis

Cancer diagnosis is a challenge anywhere, especially in low-resource settings. Commonly, a combination of medical history, laboratory tests, imaging tests, and biopsy are used, requiring specialized facilities, workers and demanding high costs for achieving conclusive results. However, recent advancements in genomic profiling technologies and proteomics allow biomarkers to play an increasingly important role in cancer diagnosis and predictive measures. Single or multiple biomarker signatures can also provide information regarding the severity of the disease and therapeutic effectiveness, being extremely important for achieving better clinical outcomes. In this scenario, biosensors are a promising alternative for the simple, rapid, low-cost, and precise detection and quantification of biomarkers, especially in low-resource settings. These devices can detect specific proteins, DNA fragments, whole cells, and others with great sensitivity, even in complex biological samples. Currently, the integration of biosensors with smart materials such as polymers and carbon- and metal-based nanomaterials is a trend since these can promote improved selectivity, sensitivity, response time, and cost-efficiency of devices. This chapter will cover different types of biosensors for cancer diagnosis, as well as the use of smart materials and their influence on device performance.