Recent approaches to the synthesis of smart nanomaterials for nanodevices in disease diagnosis

Abstract Noninvasive analysis and presymptomatic molecular diagnosis are the most important for predictive and preventive medicine, allowing earlier disease diagnosis and therapy instauration, reduced cost to healthcare systems, and improved prognosis and better quality of life. Most molecular biomarkers, indicating the state of disease by their presence or high concentration, are larger biomolecules such as proteins, microRNAs, and damaged DNAs; therefore there is a need to develop miniaturized and portable point-of-care devices, with fast analytical response and high selectivity and good sensitivity, ease of use, biocompatibility, and noninvasiveness for use in the biomedical field. Today, micro/nanotechnology is a very active research area to discover new and more efficient smart nanomaterials to be used or applied in wearable and imprinted sensing devices, flexible optoelectronics, artificial intelligence, self-heating, antimicrobial coatings and nanofilms, nanophotonics, optogenetics, and energy harvesting systems. Nanomaterials, such as inorganic and organic nanoparticles, carbon-based nanomaterials and nanocomposites, nanosized and nanostructured polymeric films, and other 3D nanomaterials (e.g., silica-based nanomaterials, molecularly imprinted polymers, metal organic frames, nanomotors, nanorobots), have been widely used for the development of biosensors integrated into diagnostic nanodevices. Recent approaches for the synthesis and functionalization of the most important smart nanomaterials are discussed and future trends and perspectives are emphasized.