Chapter 14: Engineering Volatile Biomarkers for Disease Detection Check Access

Biodiagnostics based on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be divided into direct and indirect approaches, each of which can be tackled by either selective or bioinspired semiselective/cross-reactive sensing strategies. The current chapter presents and discusses the advances and challenges in harnessing VOCs for clinical diagnostics by using the selective sensing approach. The chapter examines different concepts that rely on the administration of exogenous molecules\substances metabolized into volatile by-products by disease-specific metabolic pathways. It shows how tracer-based methods with stable isotopes, exogenous VOCs and, most recently, synthetically engineered volatile nanoreporters can be harnessed toward improved diagnostics and relate to challenges in the field.