Biosensors, Toxicity Monitoring

Abstract

The need for simple, rapid, cost‐effective, and field‐portable screening methods has boosted development in the field of biosensors. This article reviews recent advances in the field of toxicity biosensors for monitoring chemical and biological toxicants, with a focus on how such technologies can be adapted to toxicity monitoring. Current efforts in this direction are concentrated toward disposable devices for screening and semiquantitative analysis. These can be designed to detect a single specific analyte or can provide general or group toxicity screening, depending on the design parameters and the specificity of the biomolecule. Relevant, specific applications and the analytical performance of biosensors for toxicity monitoring of several classes of chemical toxins are discussed.