INTRODUCTION TO MEMS IN BIOLOGY AND HEALTHCARE

Abstract

For near about two decades the integration between biology, biomedicine, and fabrication technology at the micro and nano scales have been heavily explored by researchers. This merger started way back in the early 1990s with the advent of the famous Human Genome project, which led to the need for rapid clinical diagnostics. Starting from diagnostic assays, this field of research has found wide-ranging applications in multiple domains, which include therapeutics (Barkam et al., 2013), advanced drug delivery (Cobo et al., 2015), cellular engineering (Ni et al., 2009), tissue engineering (Puleo et al., 2007), biosensing (Basu et al., 2019a), implantable biodevices (Kotzar et al., 2002), and many others. Today, with the complex nature of healthcare problems that exist around the world, there is a great need for point of care devices that are able to fight the disease menace with rapid turnarounds to aid diagnosis, so as to elevate quality of life. This introductory chapter provides an overview of the developments in this field of research with progress made over three distinct areas including biomicroelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and microfluidics and wearable sensors.