SERS biosensors for point-of-care infectious disease diagnostics

Timely diagnosis of infectious diseases is critical to healthcare, especially in the time of pandemics. However, most current methods of infectious disease diagnosis are laboratory-based, which typically have a long turn-around time. This causes delays in treatment and increases the risk of further disease spread and worsening symptoms during wait times. Biosensors and integrated systems that can detect infectious diseases at the point-of-care (POC) have continued to attract intense research interest. Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a selective and sensitive analytical technique which can achieve single-molecule detection limits. Many research groups have been trying to utilize SERS for infectious disease diagnostics at the POC. In this chapter, we review different SERS-based biosensors that have been recently developed for POC infectious disease diagnostics. For each biosensor, we will look at the following characteristics: (1) working principle and analytical process, (2) limit of detection, (3) ability to work with real-life samples, and (4) other features when appropriate.