Polymer Composites for Medical Diagnosis

Dear Colleagues,

Medical diagnostic technologies have traditionally been centralised within hospital departments but recent advances in the design of functional materials have greatly expanded the opportunities to develop systems that can be deployed at the point of care. Such technologies provide a multitude of advantages with rapid analysis and more timely interventions helping to dramatically improve patient outcomes. It is little surprise that this has led to a $23 billion dollar devices market in the US alone which, by most forecasts, is expected to grow substantially in the forthcoming years. Polymer composites lie at the heart of many of these devices and advances in the design of new materials are increasingly driving the development of new intelligent systems. Examples of emerging smart systems include: wound dressings, sutures, catheters, implants, tattoos, microneedle patches and a host of textile based wearable sensors. These seek to meet the demand of providing detailed telemetry on the patient’s condition through facilitating minimally invasive autonomous sensing and, in many cases, early warning of potential clinical complications.

A wide spectrum of new materials has emerged in recent years contributing to a diverse range of new applications that will greatly expand the diagnostic toolbox available to clinicians but which will also aid patients in the self-management of their health. These are revolutionary times in medical diagnostics and it is clear that composite research has a critical role in future healthcare planning. This Special Issue seeks to train a spotlight on polymer composites (new and re-purposed) that are helping to shape the medical/personal health diagnostics landscape. The journal welcomes high quality papers (review, perspective, communication or full research article) covering a broad spectrum of applications (hospital, clinic or community based). The main criteria is that the focus must be on polymer composites and how they influence diagnostic performance.

Prof. Dr. James Davis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. ChemEngineering is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Functional materials
• biomedical sensors
• biosensors
• smart systems
• conductive polymers
• redox polymers
• 3D printing
• additive manufacture
• point of care testing
• diagnostics
• autonomous sensors
• polymeric actuators
• smart textiles
• conductive textiles
• wearable sensors