The importance of glucose monitoring for in vivo as well as for ex vivo applications has driven a vast number of scientific groups to pursue the development of an advanced glucose sensor. Such a sensor must be robust, versatile, and capable of the long-term, accurate and reproducible detection of glucose levels in various testing media. Among the different configurations and signal transduction mechanisms used, fluorescence-based glucose sensors constitute a growing class of glucose sensors represented by an increasing number of significant contributions to the field over the last few years. This manuscript reviews the progress in the development of fluorescence based glucose sensors resulting from the advances in the design of new receptor systems for glucose recognition and the utilization of new fluorescence transduction schemes.

A novel artificial muscle material based on an acrylic acid/acrylamide hydrogel blended with a conductive polypyrrole/carbon black composite was prepared. The material was optimized in terms of its electroactuation response by varying the acrylic acid content, the blending concentration of the conductive composite, and the intensity of the electric field. The artificial muscle material showed a fast and reversible electroactuation when a low potential was applied. Further, the artificial muscle was incorporated into a microfabricated pumping device that exhibited reproducible flow rates, thus demonstrating its potential usefulness in bio-micro-electro-mechanical systems (BioMEMS) applications.

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