Themed collection In celebration of Chinese New Year 2020

This minireview summarizes recent trends in the development of low fouling electrochemical biosensors based on different antifouling materials.

This review highlights the advances in single cell manipulation and biochemical analysis on microfluidics over the past three years.

This review highlights the developments, accomplishments and challenges of integrated μPADs, including sample pretreatment, signal transduction/amplification and results output.

Integrated microfluidic systems with sample preparation and nucleic acid amplification can increase treatment efficiency and improve care.

This review describes recent efforts in the application of nanomaterials as sensing elements in electrochemical and optical miRNAs assays.

Compared with the conventional ensemble averaged measurements, single object analysis with optical microscopy can obtain the heterogeneous behavior of many individual objects, avoiding false judgment. Moreover, higher spatial and temporal resolution has been achieved by various optical imaging technologies.

Cells are the most basic structural units that play vital roles in the functioning of living organisms.

Recent advances in single-cell analysis have unraveled substantial heterogeneity among seemingly identical cells at genomic and transcriptomic levels.

Advances in microfluidic techniques have prompted researchers to study the inherent heterogeneity of single cells in cell populations.

This review examines the current status (from 2016 to December 2018) of the electroanalytical application of boron-doped diamond (BDD), in view of its advantages and challenges for electroanalytical applications.

With the rapid development, mass production, and pervasive distribution of smartphones in recent years, they have provided people with portable, cost-effective, and easy-to-operate platforms to build analytical biosensors for point-of-care (POC) applications and mobile health.

Recent advances in miRNA detection methods and new applications.

Graphene-based aptasensors exhibit wide applications for the biomedical detection of DNA, proteins, small molecules, viruses, bacteria, and cells.

In this review, we discuss the up-to-date progress of particle migration in viscoelastic fluids mainly from the aspect of applications, laying out a comprehensive perspective on their potential in future lab-on-a-chip platforms.

Different synthetic strategies derived from droplet reactors with integrated functional regions for NC synthesis.

Photonic crystal (PC) cavities, which possess the advantages of compactness, flexible design, and suitability for integration in a lab-on-a-chip system, are able to distinguish slight variations in refractive index with only a small amount of analyte.

A new alkaline phosphatase sensing strategy based on the specific chromogenic interaction between ferric ion and ascorbic acid 2-phosphate was proposed.

A continuous-flow single-cell mechanotyping method which can decouple the cell size-dependent effect from the cell compressibility-dependent effect is presented.

We present a smartphone-based portable Raman spectrometer, which has a friendly human–machine interface, easy operation, rapid response time, and most importantly a very small size for on-site use.

In this communication, we report a new type of nickel cobalt nitride hybrid nanowire array in situ grown on a Ti plate (Ni₃N–Co₃N NW/Ti) topotactically converted from Ni–Co hydroxide as a high-active catalyst electrode for glucose electrooxidation in alkaline media.

We present coalescence of liquid marbles in a non-contact approach by applying electrostatics to embedded electrodes.

We report cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) triple-emulsion droplet lasers with controllable dual-gain and variable mode excitations, which offers a new route for optofluidic applications.

A miniaturized device based on integrated continuous flow PCR and electrophoresis microfluidic chip was developed for diagnosis of pathogens. It dispensed with costly external precision syringe pump and can realize rapid DNA amplification and on-site PCR products detection.

Controlled co-precipitation of biocompatible colorant-loaded nanoparticles in microfluidic channels for natural color drinks.

A highly selective and sensitive red-emitting fluorescent probe was constructed to visualize endogenous peroxynitrite in living cells and zebrafish.

Sensitive CVG-AFS/ICP-MS label-free nucleic acid and protein assays based on a selective cation exchange reaction and simple filtration separation.

We designed a near-infrared ratiometric (2.1 to 15.3, I₆₀₈/I₇₃₅) fluorescent probe with a quick response (20 s) based on cyanine polyene derivatives. This probe can detect endogenous hypochlorous acid in HepG-2 cells and determine the hypochlorous acid content in 84 disinfectant and other actual samples.

We have designed a superhydrophobic-coated chip to manipulate the static and dynamic behaviors of a drop using dielectrowetting.

ALP-triggered in situ formation of Ag NPs with high oxidase-mimicking activity for colorimetric detection of alkaline phosphatase activity.

This work presents a new strategy to engineer functional human islet organoids from iPSCs in a perfusable organ-on-a-chip device.

A label-free biosensor was proposed for HIV-1 gene detection based on cascade toehold-mediated strand displacement reactions.

This work was aimed at designing a novel and ultrasensitive electrochemical immunoassay strategy to detect neuron-specific enolase (NSE) with a triple signal amplification strategy.

Scheme of the MnO₂ NP-mediated fluorescence turn-off-on process of CDs with MnO₂ NPs and GSH.

Herein we propose a label-free and sensitive detection method for coralyne and heparin, based on utilizing the complex of adenosine₁₆ (A₁₆) and coralyne to induce the formation of a G-quadruplex scaffold.

A PDMS-based handy microsensor for on-chip microscale integrable pressure monitoring with high resolution.

DeepCID can achieve high accuracy, excellent sensitivity and few false positives for component identification in mixtures based on Raman spectroscopy and deep learning.

A multiple signal amplification of a SERS biosensor was developed for sensitive detection of cTnI with the aid of GO/AuNP complexes.

We report a fully integrated SERS-based microdroplet platform for simultaneous detection of various concentrations of a reagent.

A simple far-red fluorescent probe was developed to monitor mercury ions in environmental water samples and in living systems.

A simple and novel strategy for detection of AA and ALP via controlled generation of Ag NPs and selective recognition.

Dual-template molecularly imprinted polymers were synthesized using norfloxacin and enrofloxacin as templates by precipitation polymerization with a multi-template imprinting strategy.

Novel fluorescent microfluidic paper chips were developed by the combination of molecularly imprinted polymers and microfluidic paper chips with CdTe quantum dots for the specific recognition and sensitive detection of the pesticide 2,4-D.

A novel fluorescent probe for Pd²⁺ based on the BODIPY fluorophore exploiting the PET (Photoinduced Electron Transfer) mechanism was designed and successfully synthesized.

One-dimensional nanomaterials with controlled morphology have received considerable attention as chemical sensors.

A new and tri-responsive fluorescent Schiff base probe (DBAB) has been designed and developed for the recognition of iron(III) ions (Fe³⁺), iron(II) ions (Fe²⁺) and copper(II) ions (Cu²⁺) simultaneously.

Water-in-oil-in-water double emulsions (W/O/W DEs) are generated to encapsulate non-adherent cells and anchored in an array on-chip for in situ assays.

High portability and environmental safety (“green”) are two of the most important objectives pursued by microfluidic methods.

A novel electrochemical sensor based on Pd@Pt/MWCNT composite for simultaneous detection of doxorubicin and dasatinib.

A simple colorimetric and far-red fluorescent probe was developed for the first time to visualize the gasotransmitter carbon monoxide in subcellular mitochondria.

We proposed an ultrasensitive method for studying low abundance ALP secreted by individual cell using the microfluidic droplet-based SERRS technique.

We proposed a novel syringe flow-stabilizer for hand-powered, precise, continuous-flow microfluidic sample injection in resource-poor settings.

A facile Fe-doped carbon quantum dot based fluorescent sensor for dopamine sensing and bioimaging was constructed.

To eliminate mercury contamination in aqueous environment, chitosan–gold nanocomposite and its functionalized paper strips were designed and developed for visual sensing and removal of trace Hg²⁺.

We report a novel two-photon ratiometric fluorescent probe (DNEPI) for highly selective sensing mitochondrial Cys in live cells.

Two AIE-active reaction-type probes: one probe, two channels, at the same & different cell locations for superoxide anion.

A conjugated carbon-dot–tyrosinase bioprobe was first designed and applied for sensitive and selective dopamine detection in human serum.

Porous graphene was prepared by combustion method and fabricated as a new coating on stainless-steel fiber for direct immersion solid-phase microextraction of PAHs in environmental water.

MSN-NH₂ was used as sorbent of dSPE for extraction and preconcentration of dyes from different foodstuffs prior to HPLC analysis.

Discrimination ability for geographical origins of 3rd to 8th cultivation years Paris yunnanensis of PLS-DA was better than RF model.

Microplastics with complex polymer compositions are present in a lot of local marine organisms.

The developed high-throughput liquid biopsy platform for rare tumor cell separation from body fluids has shown enormous promise in cancer detection and prognosis monitoring.

We have developed a rapid and selective approach for the detection of melamine based on simple DNA probes and α-hemolysin nanopores.

We present a new strategy to generate stem cell based human brain organoids using an organ-on-a-chip system that allows us to model prenatal nicotine exposure.

A PLGA nanofiber membrane supported lung-on-a-chip microdevice was developed to model the alveolar microenvironment for anti-cancer drug testing.