One promising, but currently underexplored, area for the future of drinking water pathogen monitoring stems from the development of nanomaterial-enabled detection strategies. The nanoscience literature contains numerous reports of nanoenabled biosensors; however, to date only a small percentage have focused on the detection of whole cells, in general, and waterborne pathogens, in particular. There are significant opportunities for the use of nanoenabled biosensors for environmental monitoring, and this review is intended to both illustrate the state of this field and to spur additional research in this area.
