Abstract

With an exponential rise in antimicrobial resistance and stagnant antibiotic
development pipeline, there is, more than ever, a crucial need to optimize
current infection therapy approaches. One of the most important stages in
this process requires rapid and effective identification of pathogenic bacteria
responsible for diseases. Current gold standard techniques of bacterial
detection include culture methods, polymerase chain reactions, and
immunoassays. However, their use is fraught with downsides with high
turnaround time and low accuracy being the most prominent. This imposes
great limitations on their eventual application as point-of-care devices. Over
time, innovative detection techniques have been proposed and developed to
curb these drawbacks. In this review, a systematic summary of a range of
biosensing platforms is provided with a strong focus on technologies
conferring high detection sensitivity and specificity. A thorough analysis is
performed and the benefits and drawbacks of each type of biosensor are
highlighted, the factors influencing their potential as point-of-care devices are
discussed, and the authors’ insights for their translation from
proof-of-concept systems into commercial medical devices are provided.