Continuous Eye Biomarker Monitoring System using HF RFID for Smart Contact Lens

Eye basal tear fluid is a multi-layered structure containing enzymes, proteins, lipids, and electrolytes. A thin barrier between tears and blood causes a compositional difference between blood and tear fluid. However, the blood supplies the brain passes through this barrier and causes the leak of metabolites from blood to the tears. Consequently, blood-tear correlations were established as the basis to develop tear proxies that could mirror the blood levels of some metabolites. This makes the eye tear fluid a suitable candidate to replace painful blood sampling in the clinical settings to monitor important biomarkers in a non-invasive or semi-invasive manner. Therefore, contact lenses which are in direct contact with eye tears can be functionalized or integrated with tiny sensors to continuously detect different metabolites such as glucose level and glaucoma. In this work, a high frequency (HF) RFID-based continuous eye biomarker monitoring system with 13.56 MHz operation frequency is proposed to integrate with contact lens. In 2017, a smart contact lens with an ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID at 920 MHz and capacitive pressure sensor is proposed. However, such high frequency-based system is inappropriate for continuous monitoring of sensitive biological part like eye as it can cause the rise in local temperature and damage it. Therefore, a lower frequency RFID will be investigated in this project. It includes design, analysis, manufacture and testing of transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) antenna for HF RFID and integrate those with commercial off-the shelf HF RFID reader and tag, respectively. In this project, a similar phantom as eye tear fluid will be prepared to test the performance of the RFID system and the integrated sensor. Furthermore, a rigorous testing of the tissue safety parameters including specific absorption rate will be conducted.

All applicants must have or expect to have a 1^st class MChem, MPhys, MEng, MSci or equivalent degree by Summer 2023. Selection will be based on academic excellence and research potential, and all short-listed applicants will be interviewed (in person or via Teams).

Closing Date: 9 of February 2023. All successful candidates must commence studies as soon as possible.

How to Apply

Apply: https://hwacuk.elluciancrmrecruit.com/Apply/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2fApply

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(a) in ‘Study Option’

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(b) in ‘Research Project Information’

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For questions about the application process, please contact [Email Address Removed]