Medical Design Briefs - October 2024 - 50

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The sensor comprises an ionic electronic bilayer hydrogel that can detect solid-state
biomarkers from the skin. The sensor is connected to a flexible printed circuit board
that transmits data wirelessly to a user interface. (Credit: NUS iHealthtech)
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Computer-Aided Drug
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A collaboration between
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Scientists at Scripps Research have
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Drug-Loaded 3D Printed
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The University of South Australia is
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50
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to areas including chronic disease management, population-wide
screening, remote patient monitoring, and sport physiology.
The team's findings were published in the journal Nature Materials.
A*STAR's Institute of High Performance Computing and
Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, as well as Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, also contributed to the research.
n Innovating to Overcome Existing Challenges
Monitoring biomarkers - chemicals found in blood or other
body fluids that capture what is happening in a cell or an organism
at a given moment - traditionally involves analyzing biofluids
such as blood, urine and sweat. While effective, these methods
come with challenges. Blood tests are invasive and inconvenient,
while urine analyses can be cumbersome and lack real-time capability.
Probing biomarkers from sweat, though non-invasive, is
limited by the difficulty of inducing sweat in inactive individuals
and the discomfort of using sweat-inducing drugs. All these pose
barriers to the early diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
SEBs offer a compelling alternative. These biomarkers, which
include cholesterol and lactate, are found in the stratum corneum,
the outermost layer of the skin, and have shown strong correlations
with diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
However, detecting these biomarkers directly has been difficult.
For instance, traditional solid electrodes lack the necessary charge
transport pathways to enable electrochemical sensing of SEBs.
The NUS and A*STAR research team has overcome this challenge
with their novel sensor design. When the device is worn
on the skin, SEBs dissolve into the ionic conductive hydrogel
(ICH) layer, diffuse through the hydrogel matrix, and undergo
electrochemical reactions catalyzed by enzymes at the junction
between the ICH and electronically conductive hydrogel
(ECH) layer. Relevant physiological data is then transmitted
wirelessly to an external user interface via a flexible printed circuit
board, providing continuous monitoring capabilities. The
sensor is produced using a scalable and cost-effective manufacturing
process called screen printing.
" Our novel hydrogel sensor technology is key to enabling
the non-invasive detection of solid-state biomarkers on skin.
The ionic conductive hydrogel layer that solvates the biomarkers
and the electronically conductive hydrogel layer facilitates
electron transport. This bilayer enables the sequential solvation,
diffusion, and electrochemical reaction of the biomarkers.
Another highlight is the sensor's sensitivity with biomarkers
being detected precisely even in low amounts, " says Liu.
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9/17/24 1:26 PM
Medical Design Briefs, October 2024
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Medical Design Briefs - October 2024

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