Recent Progress of Hydrogel Sensors and Biosensors (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Gels (ISSN 2310-2861). This special issue belongs to the section "Gel Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 418

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM), Universitat Politècnica de València, Universitat de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
2. Departamento de Química, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: optical biosensing; surface functionalization; biofunctionalization; photoinduced immobilization; label-free; holography; diffraction-based sensing; photonic sensors; biograting; immunoassay; hydrogels; material synthesis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM), Universitat Politècnica de València, Universitat de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: surface functionalization; biofunctionalization; carbon nanomaterials; nanoparticle synthesis; hydrogels; material synthesis; material characterization; organic chemistry; optical biosensing; diffraction-based sensing; label-free; holography
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Instituto Interuniversitario de Investigación de Reconocimiento Molecular y Desarrollo Tecnológico (IDM), Universitat Politècnica de València, Universitat de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
2. Departamento de Química, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Interests: immunochemical methods; surface chemistry; nanomaterials for bioanalysis; photonic biosensing; screening systems; bioreagents development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are grateful to all authors, reviewers, and readers for their responses to the first edition of our Special Issue on “Recent Progress of Hydrogel Sensors and Biosensors (2nd Edition)”. You can access these articles for free via the following link:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/gels/special_issues/J61NDJY6RQ

Hydrogels have attracted substantial attention over the last few decades due to their 3D hydrophilic structure, swelling in high quantities of water. They have found application in controlled release, drug delivery, immunomodulation, tissue engineering, and sensing and biosensing.

Hydrogels used for sensors and biosensors are appropriately tailored so that their physicochemical properties change following interaction with their target. Thus, stimuli, such as pressure, light, electric fields, magnetic fields, heat, the presence of small molecules and biomolecules, or pH, can be monitored by analyzing their effect on the absorbance, color, refractive index, conductivity, or rheological properties of materials, among others.

The smart design of hydrogels, their functionalization, and the format and measurement set-ups used for different analyses are necessary to deliver monitoring devices with adequate analytical performance for real applications.

This Special Issue aims to collect both original research articles and review papers on the most recent innovations in the formulation, synthesis, processing, design, and characterization of hydrogels in different formats for sensing and biosensing. Studies on wearables, point-of-care, and emerging sensing technologies based on hydrogels are greatly encouraged. 

Prof. Dr. María-José Bañuls
Dr. María Isabel Lucío
Prof. Dr. Ángel Maquieira
Guest Editors

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. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2100 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.

Keywords

  • hydrogel
  • sensors
  • biosensors
  • stimuli-responsive
  • wearable
  • point of care

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 2578 KiB  
Article
Surface Relief Gratings of Slide-Ring Hydrogels for Label-Free Biosensing
by Aitor Cubells-Gómez, María Isabel Lucío, María-José Bañuls and Ángel Maquieira
Gels 2025, 11(6), 415; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels11060415 - 30 May 2025
Viewed by 337
Abstract
The creation of surface relief gratings using hydrogels for label-free biomolecule detection represents a significant advance in the development of versatile, cutting-edge biosensors. Central to this innovation is the formulation of materials with enhanced mechanical properties, especially for applications in soft, wearable technologies. [...] Read more.
The creation of surface relief gratings using hydrogels for label-free biomolecule detection represents a significant advance in the development of versatile, cutting-edge biosensors. Central to this innovation is the formulation of materials with enhanced mechanical properties, especially for applications in soft, wearable technologies. In this work, we have developed novel biofunctional hydrogels that incorporate slide-ring supramolecular structures into their network, enabling the production of surface relief gratings with superior mechanical characteristics for biomolecule detection without the need for labels. These hydrogels, functionalized with bovine serum albumin and goat anti-rabbit antibodies, demonstrated excellent selectivity and sensitivity toward anti-bovine serum albumin and rabbit IgGs in blood serum, evaluated using a label-free format. Remarkably, the new materials matched the analytical performance of conventional hydrogels based on static networks while offering dramatically improved toughness and elasticity, with a compressive modulus comparable to human skin. This demonstrates the potential of slide-ring hydrogels for fabricating robust, label-free biosensing platforms. Furthermore, the flexibility of this system allows for the incorporation of various recognition elements tailored to specific applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Progress of Hydrogel Sensors and Biosensors (2nd Edition))
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