Applications of biosensors: from food control to search for life on Mars

Biosensors, which combine a selective biological element (antibody, enzyme, cell, etc.) with a transducer, enable the rapid detection and/or quantification of the presence of certain biomolecules in food, the environment or biological fluids (blood, urine, etc.). Their compactness, high specificity, sensitivity and portability are all reasons to believe that, in the long term, they could supplant existing techniques in this field. Over the past twenty years, the number of bibliographic references including the term "biosensor" in the title or abstract has grown exponentially: from 9 references in 1988, this number rose to 756 in 2007, demonstrating the craze surrounding these technologies.

Since the pioneering work of Clark and Lyons [1] , biosensor technologies have evolved tremendously. Nevertheless, although research efforts have been considerable, little attention has been paid to their conditions of use in the field. In many cases, biosensors have not been tested on real samples, and a gap still exists between academic biosensor developments and their practical applications. Another disappointment is that few generic biosensors are commercially available, and still too few are dedicated to food or environmental analysis.

This article presents the various biosensor technologies developed in recent years and reviews their applications.