There is a high demand to develop innovative and cost effective devices
with interest for health care beside environment diagnostics, safety and
security applications. The development of such devices is strongly related
to new materials and technologies being nanomaterials and nanotechnology
of special role. We study how new nanomaterials such as nanoparticles,
graphene, nano/micromotors can be integrated in simple sensors thanks to
their advantageous properties. Beside plastic platforms physical, chemical
and mechanical properties of cellulose in both micro and nanofiber-based
networks combined with their abundance in nature or easy to prepare and
control procedures are making these materials of great interest while
looking for cost-efficient and green alternatives for device production
technologies. Both paper and nanopaper-based biosensors are emerging as a
new class of devices with the objective to fulfil the “World Health
Organization” requisites to be ASSURED: affordable, sensitive, specific,
user-friendly, rapid and robust, equipment free and deliverable to
end-users. How to design simple paper-based biosensor architectures? How
to tune their analytical performance upon demand? How one can couple
nanomaterials such as metallic nanoparticles, quantum dots and even
graphene with paper and what is the benefit? How we can make these
devices more robust, sensitive and with multiplexing capabilities? Can we
bring these low cost and efficient devices to places with low resources,
extreme conditions or even at our homes? Which are the perspectives to
link these simple platforms and detection technologies with mobile
communication? I will try to give responses to these questions through
various interesting applications related to protein, DNA and even
contaminants detection all of extreme importance for diagnostics,
nanotheranostics, environment control, safety and security.