In situ fabrication of wearable devices through coating approaches is a promising solution for the fast deployment of wearable devices and more adaptable devices for different sensing demands. However, heat, solvent, and mechanical sensitivity of biological tissues, along with personal compliance, pose strict requirements for coating materials and methods. To address this, a biocompatible and biodegradable light-curable conductive ink and an all-in-one flexible system that conducts in situ injection and photonic curing of the ink as well as monitoring of biophysiological information have been developed. The ink can be solidified through spontaneous phase changes and photonic cured to achieve a high mechanical strength of 7.48 MPa and an excellent electrical conductivity of 3.57 × 10 5 S/m. The flexible system contains elastic injection chambers embedded with specially designed optical waveguides to uniformly dissipate visible LED light throughout the chambers and rapidly cure the ink in 5 min. The resulting conductive electrodes offer intimate skin contact even with the existence of hair and work stably even under an acceleration of 8 g, leading to a robust wearable system capable of working under intense motion, heavy sweating, and varied surface morphology. Similar concepts may lead to various rapidly deployable wearable systems that offer excellent adaptability to different monitoring demands for the health tracking of large populations.
The appearance of next generation sequencing technology that features short read length with high measurement throughput and low cost has revolutionized the field of life science, medicine, and even computer science. The subsequent development of the third-generation sequencing technologies represented by nanopore and zero-mode waveguide techniques offers even higher speed and long read length with promising applications in portable and rapid genomic tests in field. Especially under the current circumstances, issues such as public health emergencies and global pandemics impose soaring demand on quick identification of origins and species of analytes through DNA sequences. In addition, future development of disease diagnosis, treatment, and tracking techniques may also require frequent DNA testing. As a result, DNA sequencers with miniaturized size and highly integrated components for personal and portable use to tackle increasing needs for disease prevention, personal medicine, and biohazard protection may become future trends. Just like many other biological and medical analytical systems that were originally bulky in sizes, collaborative work from various subjects in engineering and science eventually leads to the miniaturization of these systems. DNA sequencers that involve nanoprobes, detectors, microfluidics, microelectronics, and circuits as well as complex functional materials and structures are extremely complicated but may be miniaturized with technical advancement. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art technology in developing essential components in DNA sequencers and analyzes the feasibility to achieve miniaturized DNA sequencers for personal use. Future perspectives on the opportunities and associated challenges for compact DNA sequencers are also identified.
of electrostatic absorption, the masks can effectively prevent respiratory droplets and airborne bacteria. To maintain the protective effect of masks, both the World Health Organization and the National Health Commission of China recommend the maximum duration of the surgical masks to be 2-6 h by considering factors such as hygiene, damage, breathing resistance, and total mass filter loading. [1,2] The extended usage of masks in daily activities and the need for frequent replacement of masks have yielded more than 1500 billion wasted masks in 2020 alone. [3,4] These obsoleted masks have become major biohazards for hosting and transporting viruses and contaminating water and soil. Mechanisms such as inherent antibacterial properties, [5] photocatalytic effect, [6] and photothermal effect [7] may be used to eliminate attached pathogens while maintaining the electrostatic absorption and physical barrier properties of masks, resulting in a reduced need for frequent replacement of the masks.Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) possess unique characteristics [8] such as large surface areas, high porosity, angstrom-sized windows, and excellent biocompatibility, showing promising applications in water purification, [9,10] heterogeneous catalyzes, [11] and drug delivery. [12] MOFs have also been considered novel antibacterial agents [6] and gas adsorbents. [13] Free ions of Ag, Cu, Ni, or Zn released continuously from the metallic clusters of MOFs have been demonstrated to possess a long-lasting antibacterial effect. [6,14,15] Organic ligands such as imidazoles, polysaccharides, and porphyrins can restrain bacterial activity due to oxidative stress reactions. [16,17] Among the MOFs with antibacterial capability, ZIF-8 has been demonstrated with more than 99.99% photocatalytic killing efficiency in 30 min and 97% particulate matter (PM) filtration efficiency. [6] It has also exhibited a photocatalytic effect that led to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) capable of killing pathogens and decomposing total volatile organic compounds (TVOC). Even so, the improved prevention and disinfection effect by jointly considering the slow releasing of metal ions, organic ligands, and photocatalysis still demands further investigation. The unique capability of ZIF-8 in PM removal, bacterial disinfection, and TVOC decomposition suggests that it can be an excellent alternative to conventional melt-blown non-woven fabrics used as filtration membranes in Masks are essential personal protective equipment during pandemics. Conventional masks that act as physical barriers due to size-dependence filtration and electrostatic absorption may quickly lose their protection effectiveness due to surface degradation, generating massive obsoleted masks and ecological contamination. Here, a self-purifying smart mask that combines active protection to airborne particles and hazardous gases while conducting real-time monitoring is developed. Electrospun ZIF-8/polyacrylonitrile membranes are used to replace melt-blown non-woven fabrics without addit...
Advances in wearable bioelectronics interfacing directly with skin offer important tools for non‐invasive measurements of physiological parameters. However, wearable monitoring devices majorly conduct static sensing to avoid signal disturbance and unreliable contact with the skin. Dynamic multiparameter sensing is challenging even with the advanced flexible skin patches. This epidermal electronics system with self‐adhesive conductive electrodes to supply stable skin contact and a unique synchronous correlation peak extraction (SCPE) algorithm to minimize motion artifacts in the photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals. The skin patch system can simultaneously and precisely monitor electrocardiogram (ECG), PPG, body temperature, and acceleration on chests undergoing daily activities. The low latency between the ECG and the PPG signals enables the SCPE algorithm that leads to reduced errors in deduced heart rates and improved performance in oxygen level determination than conventional adaptive filtering and wavelet transformation approaches. Dynamic multiparameter recording over 24 h by the system can reflect the circadian patterns of the wearers with low disturbance from motion artifacts. This demonstrated system may be applied for health monitoring in large populations to alleviate pressure on medical systems and assist management of public health crisis.
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