Whole-Cell-Based Fiber-Optic Biosensors

In the last decade, various whole-cell-based fiber-optic biosensors have been described. All of those reports have shown great potential for their use in agriculture, healthcare, and environmental fields. Genetically programmed to produce a measurable signal (e.g., light emission, changes in color or current), such bioreporters, coupled with fiber-optic transducers, create fast, simple, and easy measurement tools for the determination of contaminant presence, bioavailability, and relative toxicity in tested samples. In this chapter, the advances and drawbacks of whole-cell fiber-optic applications are reviewed, and the critical challenges that need to be overcome to implement these applications in the real world are discussed.