BIOMEMS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY-BASED APPROACHES FOR RAPID DETECTION OF BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES

In recent years, the areas of Bio-Microelectromechanical Systems (BioMEMS) and nanotechnology have gained a high level of prominence and have become almost inseparable with biological applications including detec-tion, diagnostics, therapeutics and tissue engineering. This article reviews some of the current state-of-the-art interdisciplinary research from these fields, especially focusing on rapid detection of pathogens and microorgan-isms, a critical area of importance to food safety, clinical diagnostics and related applications. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Food microbiology has been an inseparable part of food quality moni-toring and control. However, all the diagnostic techniques in a microbiology laboratory are time and labor intensive. As on date the principal requirement of the food industry is the fast, accurate and easy to handle devices which have the potential of point of care detection. A lot of research demonstrating a high level of synergism between microbiology, nanotechnology and micro-electronic processing has been directed towards the rapid detection an