Nanobiotechnology enabled approaches for wastewater based epidemiology

The impacts of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic highlight the importance of environmental monitoring to inform public health safety. Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) has drawn interest as a tool for analysis of biomarkers in wastewater networks. Wide scale implementation of WBE requires a variety of field deployable analytical tools for real-time monitoring. Nanobiotechnology enabled sensing platforms offer potential as biosensors capable of highly efficient and sensitive detection of target analytes. This review provides an overview of the design and working principles of nanobiotechnology enabled biosensors and recent progress on the use of biosensors in detection of biomarkers. In addition, applications of biosensors for analysis of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus are highlighted as they relate to the potential expanded use of biosensors for WBE-based monitoring. Finally, we discuss the opportunities and challenges in future applications of biosensors in WBE for effective monitoring and investigation of public health threats. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

This article provides an overview of the design and working principles of nanobiotechnology-enabled biosensors, as well as recent advances in the use of biosensors for biomarker detection. It also emphasizes the applications of biosensors in analyzing the SARS-CoV-2 virus and discusses the opportunities and challenges in utilizing biosensors for WBE-based monitoring in the future.