Paper-based test strips are attracting immense attention because of their simplicity, low cost, portability and short test time. This talk will present our effort to develop the paper-based test strips for detection of nucleic acids and heavy metals. Nanomaterials are utilized to improve the sensitivity. The surface-enhanced Raman scattering and the colorimetric methods are employed for the signal transduction. The effects of the signal transduction method on the sensing performance are studied. The developed paper-based test strips have potential applications in point-of-care testing, especially in the resource-poor settings.