Wearable biosensors are becoming increasingly popular due to the rise in demand for non-invasive, real-time monitoring of health and personalized medicine. Traditionally, wearable biosensors have explored protein-based enzymatic and affinity-based detection strategies. However, in the past decade, with the success of nucleic acid-based point-of-care diagnostics, a paradigm shift has been observed in integrating nucleic acid-based assays into wearable sensors, offering better stability, enhanced analytical performance, and better clinical applicability. This narrative review builds upon the current state and advances in utilizing nucleic acid-based assays, including oligonucleotides, nucleic acid, aptamers, and CRISPR-Cas, in wearable biosensing. The review also discusses the three fundamental blocks, i.e., fabrication requirements, biomolecule integration, and transduction mechanism, for creating nucleic acid integrated wearable biosensors.

The advent of bioprocessing has revolutionized the biomanufacturing industry, leading to the rise of biotherapeutics derived from biologic products such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells used for targeted cancer treatment and the Vero cell line for the production of viral vectors and vaccines. Despite these promising developments, most biologic products are characterized by fragile macromolecular structures that are heterogenous with a purity profile that varies with each batch making them susceptible to microorganism contamination. Regulatory oversight of biologic products is imperative to ensure adherence to good manufacturing practices and compliance with quality management systems. Current quality assurance protocols during production include monoclonality during cell line development, real-time monitoring of process parameters, flow cytometry for microbial monitoring, polymerase chain reaction, and immunoassay techniques to amplify DNA sequences related to bacterial or biological contaminants. FDA guidance recommends the implementation of process analytical technology within biomanufacturing production to measure critical quality parameters, which includes screening for potential biological contamination. Future advancements in bioprocess monitoring and control should capitalize on providing cheap, real-time, and sensitive detection. Biosensors, mass spectrometry, and polymerase chain reaction present robust, rapid, and real-time capabilities for multiplexed detection of contaminant analytes and have shown promise in meeting these needs. This review discusses the main biological contaminants of bioprocesses, European Union and FDA regulatory guidelines for monitoring and control within biologics production, existing methods and their limitations, and future advancements for biological contamination detection.

An electronically regulated, gravity-feed, intravenous infusion set in which a length of intravenous tubing is attached to a drip chamber to deliver a fluid to be administered intravenously. A contraption for monitoring drop flow in the chamber of the intravenous set incorporates a sensor housing containing a reference light source located a fixed distance from a photocell to define a fixed optical sensing gap there between, with a reference light beam normally impinging upon the photocell. The casing can be selectively fastened upon the drip chamber with the drip chamber set within the sensing gap to intercept the reference light beam. The rate of fluid flow is controlled by a non-invasive actuator attached to the intravenous tubing. A round spherical tip attached to a linear actuator stepper motor (constituents of the actuator) is adjusted with reference to a calibrated scale in accordance to feedback from the drop flow sensor. The system regulates fluid flow with an agreeable degree of accuracy (±1 count).

The mission of healthcare systems in Africa to deliver compassionate and effective care has been constrained by growing populations, increasing burden of disease, political conflict and limited resources. The impacts of these constraints can be substantially alleviated, and the healthcare services strengthened, through the creation and adoption of affordable, accessible and appropriate biomedical engineering systems and technologies. There is an urgent need for building capacities in biomedical engineering, innovation and entrepreneurship in African countries. The African Biomedical Engineering Consortium has been organising a series of Innovators’ Summer Schools to meet this need by empowering students and researchers with entrepreneurial and innovative skills, and facilitating the design and development of robust, appropriate, and commercially viable medical systems and devices. In this paper, we analyse and discuss the impact of six of these schools held between 2012 and 2017. We used a questionnaire-based survey to collect responses from students who had attended the summer schools. The results of this study demonstrate that the teaching-learning model adopted in the ABEC summer schools was largely effective in promoting biomedical engineering skills, career choices, professional networks and partnerships amongst young African engineers and life scientists who attended the summer schools.