Wearable Sensors for Continuous Monitoring of Biomarkers

Wearables as medical technologies are becoming an integral part of personal analytics, measuring individual’s physical status, recording physiological parameters, and informing schedule for medication. These new technology platforms promise to help people pursue a healthier life style, but also provide continuous medical data for actively tracking metabolic status, diagnosis, and treatment. Advances in the miniaturization of flexible electronics, electrochemical biosensors, microfluidics, and artificial intelligence algorithms have led to wearable devices that can provide real-time medical data.

The aim of this project will be to develop wearable devices for continuous monitoring of pH, glucose, electrolytes, and proteins in the body. Optical materials and methods including chromogenic dyes, fluorescence, diffraction, and total internal reflection will be used to create highly-sensitive and selective sensors that can be reversibly detect biomarkers in real-time. A smartphone camera interface will be developed to read the sensors quantitatively.

The candidate is expected to have a background in chemistry, chemical engineering, or basic sciences. The successful student will form part of a multidisciplinary team and will be supervised by Dr. Ali K. Yetisen and Professor Liam Grover based in the Institute of Translational Medicine (www.itmbirmingham.co.uk) and the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. In addition, the successful candidate will need to work closely with collaborators in University of Cambridge, Harvard University, MIT, and the University of California.