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Opportunistic skin pathogens and their resistance to pre-existing therapeutics are a challenge to normal physiological wound healing processes. Consistent development of antimicrobial agents is required to overcome the complications raised by antimicrobial resistance. An effective alternative proposed in recent research includes the use of antimicrobial nanoparticles or nanobiopolymers. Unfortunately, metallic nanoparticles that have been proven as antimicrobial agents also possess a certain level of toxicity. In this work, we demonstrate the use of a cationic polymer, branched polyethyleneimine (B-PEI), that has been electrospun to obtain a scaffold/fiber (B-PEI NF) mat resulting in a large surface area-to-volume ratio. SEM analysis revealed that the average diameter of the obtained fibers is 240 nm. The formation of nanoscaffold modulates the controlled release of the polymer from the matrix resulting in long-term effects. The antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity of the B-PEI nanofiber (B-PEI NF) was evaluated against ESKAPE pathogens (Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus) and also against Candida albicans. Dose-dependent inhibition was observed for microbial growth and biofilm for all three test organisms, the minimum inhibitory concentration required for inhibiting P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, and C. albicans is 33.125, 26.5, and 19.875 μM, respectively, in 2 mL of bacterial/fungal broth. Crystal violet and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assays showed significant reduction in biomass and cell viability of sessile cells, respectively, within the biofilm after treatment using B-PEI NFs. A B-PEI NF matrix promotes cell migration and wound healing processes by mimicking the extracellular matrix. In vitro wound healing studies showed a fivefold increase in cell migration and wound healing by B-PEI NFs (97% wound coverage in 17 h) when compared to B-PEI (15% wound coverage in 17 h). The in vitro wound healing assays confirmed the biocompatibility and better wound healing activity of B-PEI NF mats.

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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) can be diagnosed in the early stages through primary health care screening of cardiac biomarkers such as myoglobin, creatine kinase (CK), troponin I, and T. Existing CVD diagnostic methods generally rely on expensive classical assays such as immunoproteins-based enzymelinked immunosorbent assay or paperbased lateral flow assays based on centralized laboratories with test results available only after several hours. The assays are also focussed on the diagnosis and postdisease management with the dynamic ranges optimized around the higher concentration ranges, rendering these detection routes useless in the early phase disease screening. Real-time, economically viable, pointof-care test kits at normal temperature and pressure (NTP) for cardiac biomarkers will help screen in remote locations and developing countries to reduce myocardial infarction (MI) risks. Many research groups working toward this goal have developed sensors/techniques based on strain using cantilevers [1] ; electrochemical (conductance/resistance) [2,3] ; optical methods including fluorescence, [4] colorimetric, [5] UV-Vis, [6] and photonic crystals. [7] Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are also finding applications with enhanced performance. [8,9] Another technique gaining popularity is polymer nanofibers embedded with nanomaterials adopted in electrochemical and