Harnessing the Potential of Biological Recognition Elements for Water Pollution Monitoring

Environmental monitoring of pollutants is an imperativefirststep to remove the genotoxic, embryotoxic, and carcinogenic toxins. Variousbiological sensing elements such as proteins, aptamers, whole cells, etc.,have been used to track down major pollutants, including heavy metals,aromatic pollutants, pathogenic microorganisms, and pesticides in bothenvironmental samples and drinking water, demonstrating their potential ina true sense. The intermixed use of nanomaterials, electronics, andmicrofluidic systems has further improved the design and enabled robuston-site detection with enhanced sensitivity. Through this perspective, weshed light on the advances in thefield and entail recent efforts to optimizethese systems for real-time, online sensing and on-sitefield monitoring.