ABSTRACT
Over the past several decades, nanosensor development has been driven by advances in controlled fabrication and the manipulation of nanometer-scale molecular components and assemblies. These nanoscale assemblies have enabled a variety of biologically modified receptors to be created on chip-based structures and platforms. Owing to the small size and often noninvasive nature of the signal transduction, these sensors have been able to probe individual living cells both extracellularly and intracellularly for various lengths of time, providing the first true measurements of cellular pathways and metabolic processes without the potential variability experienced from multicell averaging. This chapter provides an overview of nanobiosensors and biochips with an emphasis on the ability of these technologies to probe individual cells. Specifically, fiber-optic–based optical nanosensors are introduced and methods for fabrication and signal detection are discussed. Employing nanosensors and biochips (e.g., gene chips), cellular analysis ranging from decoding of the human genome to personalized, real-time medical diagnostics have been reported. Recent advances in sensitivity, background signal suppression, and device field-ability are investigated. The application of such systems to biological measurements is presented and future directions in nanosensing are explored.
