Recent Advances, Opportunities, and Challenges in Developing Nucleic Acid Integrated Wearable Biosensors for Expanding the Capabilities of Wearable Technologies in Health Monitoring

Wearable biosensors are becoming increasingly popular due to the rise in demand for non-invasive, real-time monitoring of health and personalized medicine. Traditionally, wearable biosensors have explored protein-based enzymatic and affinity-based detection strategies. However, in the past decade, with the success of nucleic acid-based point-of-care diagnostics, a paradigm shift has been observed in integrating nucleic acid-based assays into wearable sensors, offering better stability, enhanced analytical performance, and better clinical applicability. This narrative review builds upon the current state and advances in utilizing nucleic acid-based assays, including oligonucleotides, nucleic acid, aptamers, and CRISPR-Cas, in wearable biosensing. The review also discusses the three fundamental blocks, i.e., fabrication requirements, biomolecule integration, and transduction mechanism, for creating nucleic acid integrated wearable biosensors.