Pen-on-paper strategies for point-of-care testing of human health

Nowadays, point-of-care testing (POCT) techniques have achieved flourishing development in human health monitoring, where paper-based POCT platforms have exhibited superior properties of low cost, easy accessibility and eco-friendliness. For fabrication of paper-based POCT platforms, the pen-on-paper (PoP) strategies through directly writing desired functional materials on paper have been creatively developed in recent years. The PoP strategies are characterized by simplicity, rapid prototyping and do-it-yourself capability, and are also likely to realize scalable manufacturing through integration with software-controlled plotter. In this review, we firstly introduce various kinds of papers and pens employed in the PoP strategies, and then summarize the state-of-art advances of PoP strategies for making paper-based POCT platforms. Subsequently, we discuss the representative applications of PoP strategies for human health monitoring. Conclusions, current challenges and future perspectives of the PoP strategies for human health related POCT uses are finally given. (c) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.