Editorial: Engineered 2D nanomaterial based diagnostic platforms for human disease detection

Abstract

Infectious diseases such as HIV, Malaria, Tuberculosis, are viewed as a global health threat contributing to the major causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The susceptibility of the patients with these infectious diseases are also prone to comorbid non-infectious diseases such as diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension, heart diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), and cancer, making health management even more complex especially for resource-limited regions. Diabetes, a non-communicable metabolic disorder, has been rising at an alarming rate globally, with an estimated 537 million adults living with the disease. This increasing prevalence of DM, particularly in regions heavily burdened by TB, Malaria, and HIV has created an epidemiological synergy, complicating control efforts. It is clear that early detection and surveillance is critical to and preserve and prolong health living of both humans and animals. This requires diagnostic tools that are efficiency and accessible for continuous monitoring. The biosensor technology have emerged as desirable analytical tools due to their ability to provide rapid, sensitive, and cost-effective diagnostics. They are capable of detecting specific biomarkers leading to enhanced specificity and selectivity, providing insight into disease presence, stage, and aggressiveness. These biomarkers can be found in a variety of biofluids such as blood, saliva, urine, and breath, offering minimally invasive diagnostic potential. Diagnosis using biosensors can be viewed as a confirmatory and continuous assessment of a disease, opening new avenues for predictive diagnosis over a period of time for comorbidities. Biosensing can be carried out using electrochemical, optical, lateral flow platforms. The analytical response of these platforms can be induced by utilization of nanomaterials with varying particle size, morphology, surface chemistry etc. These nanomaterials are classified based on their dimension, composition and origin, providing diverse properties, which can be fine-tined for specific disease monitoring. Other materials such as MoS2 were evaluated in the third article, where the study focused on developing of MoS2-Ag nanocomposites, which was formulated into conductive ink for fabrication of MoS2 sensor. The sensor was tested towards dopamine as the neurotransmitters, showing exceptionally high performance and ability to be used in biomedical and clinical applications. The last study, focuses on utilization of other types of sensors known as near infrared (NIR) sensors alternatives for detection of TB in both human and animals. These sensors can discriminate between various TB strains using non-invasive samples. Hence, they can be easily incorporated in portable diagnostic devices on field surveys and often epidemiological investigations as they give fresh data.The special issue also highlights challenges in upscaling of nanomaterials. An integration of modelling studies for precise control of properties, plant designs, surface engineering should be considered to unlocking the full potential of Mxenes in next-generation healthcare technologies. Additionally, the lack of frameworks for regulation of nanotoxicity especially in developing countries, where health service delivery is scarce is a hindrance that delays the market-entry of nanodiagnostics. This should inform the scientific community, government structures and funding agencies to provide proper regulation of nano-enabled diagnostics, in order to translate the research into commercial product. This will also contribute to homegrown innovations that addresses regional health management issues and fast early disease detection.