Recent advances in nanomaterial-based wearable biosensors for personalized healthcare: a scoping review with emphasis on electrochemical platforms

Abstract

Healthcare is moving toward real-time, decentralized, and personalized monitoring, creating strong interest in wearable biosensors capable of detecting clinically relevant biomarkers outside conventional clinical settings. Nanomaterials can improve wearable biosensor performance by enhancing conductivity, surface area, flexibility, biorecognition, and signal transduction. This scoping review examines recent advances in nanomaterial-based wearable biosensors for personalized healthcare, with emphasis on electrochemical platforms. This review followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Literature searches were performed in Web of Science, PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and Scopus for studies published between 2010 and 2025. Original research articles were included if they reported nanomaterial-incorporated wearable biosensors with relevance to healthcare monitoring, disease management, or personalized health assessment. Twenty-nine studies met the inclusion criteria, of which 20 used electrochemical sensing strategies. The remaining studies used other sensing approaches but provided broader context for wearable nanobiosensor development. Carbon-based nanomaterials were the most frequently reported materials because of their high conductivity, large surface area, and compatibility with flexible platforms. Metallic nanoparticles, metal oxides, conductive polymers, MXenes, and transition metal dichalcogenides were also used to improve sensitivity, selectivity, mechanical stability, and biofluid compatibility. The reviewed devices targeted biomarkers in accessible biofluids such as sweat, saliva, tears, interstitial fluid, and skin-interfaced samples, with applications in chronic disease monitoring, physiological assessment, infectious disease detection, neurological and mental health monitoring, and therapeutic feedback. Nanomaterial-based wearable biosensors, particularly electrochemical platforms, show strong potential for personalized healthcare by enabling continuous or near real-time biomarker monitoring. However, broader translation requires improved validation, long-term stability, antifouling performance, reliable biofluid sampling, wearable integration, wireless communication, and clinically relevant on-body testing.