This article reviews the current status and advances in the biosensing technologies for diagnosing COVID-19, ranging from commercial achievements to research developments.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted human life, prompt diagnostic tests are becoming an essential part of social activities; however, the expensive and time-consuming laboratory-based traditional methods cannot meet the enormous need for a massive number of tests, especially in resource-limited settings. More affordable, rapid, sensitive, and specific field-practical diagnostic devices play an important role in the fight against the disease. After a brief introduction to the disease biomarkers, the current article summarizes the working principles of the biosensing technologies, followed by a review of the commercial products and research advances in academia. The literatures are reviewed with a wide scope of bio/marker detections, embracing nucleic acids, viral proteins, human immune responses, and other potential bio/markers. Further, the challenges and perspectives for their employment in future point-of-care applications are discussed, with an extended appraisal on the practical strategies to enlarge the testing capability without high cost. This critical review provides a comprehensive insight into the diagnostic tools for COVID-19 and will encourage the industry and academia in the field of diagnostic biosensing for future evolvement to large-scale point-of-care screening for COVID-19. (publisher abstract modified)