Abstract

Microtechnologies For Immune Health Profiling In Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Han Wei Hou, Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University

Metabolic disorders such as diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are becoming the main public health challenges in Singapore and globally with rising premature morbidity and associated mortality, as well as escalating healthcare costs. In this talk, I will present our recent research efforts in the development of microfluidics technologies for “label-free” isolation and phenotyping of circulating leukocytes in type 2 DM (T2DM). We demonstrated that diabetic leukocytes exhibited significant immune dysfunctions which were well-associated with traditional CVD risk factors, clearly illustrating their potential as novel surrogate biomarkers for point-of-care testing. Overall, this multi-disciplinary research greatly facilitates rapid and quantitative analysis of immune and vascular health using liquid biopsy, with progress towards clinical diagnostics and precision medicine in the treatment of vascular dysfunctions.