Abstract

Biosensors, Sensors and Microfluidic Devices – Key Technologies to Enable Real-Time Patient Monitoring and Treatment

Martyn Boutelle, Professor of Biomedical Sensors Engineering, Imperial College London

Clinical practice is beginning to wake upto the potential of real-time molecular information from venerable tissue as a means to understand the progression in the tissue of injury or disease. Such patterns of molecular changes, particularly when combined with paternal of physical of electrical signatures, offer the exciting possibility of allowing clinicians to guide therapy on an individualized basis in real time. Microfluidic lab-on-chip devices coupled to tissue sampling using microdialysis provide an important new way for measuring real-time chemical changes as the low volume flow rates of microdialysis probes are ideally matched to the length scales of microfluidic devices. In this presentation I will describe the combination of miniature electrochemical sensors and biosensors with 3D printed microfluidic devices for transplant organ and patient monitoring. Concentrations of key biomarker molecules can then be determined continuously using either optically or electrochemically, using amperometric, potentiometic and array sensors.  Wireless devices allow analysis to take place close to the patient. Droplet-based microfluidics, by digitizing the dialysis stream into discrete low volume samples, both minimizes dispersion allowing very rapid concentration changes to be measured, and allows rapid transport of samples between patient and analysis chip. This talk will overview successful design, optimization, automatic-calibration and use of both continuous flow and droplet-based microfluidic analysis systems for real-time clinical monitoring, using clinical examples from our recent work.