(2dn) Towards Next-Generation Non-Invasive Epidermal Biomedical Devices for Continuous Health Monitoring

Teaching Interests: Transport Phenomena, Thermodynamics, Analytical Chemistry, Colloids and Interfacial Science.

The current market for biosensor-based health monitoring has an estimate to reach $140 billion by 2025, which is almost five times higher than last decade. Consequently, the overall demand for biosensors have seen an ever rising trend majorly due to the following two reasons: (a) Biosensors hold the potential to allow rapid and on-site monitoring of several disease related biomarkers as either wearables, or in-situ point-of-care (POC) testing platforms for on-demand monitoring under decentralized settings, (b) Such platforms even support continuous tracking of one’s health status without causing any discomfort or intervention of trained medical professionals. Although, many non-invasive alternative (to blood) biofluids have been investigated for several disease related biomarker detection, they remain difficult to sample, get detected with high sensitivity, not fully explored for their biochemical partitioning pathway from blood, and vulnerable to losses and contamination over time. Hence, my research interest relies on addressing these limitations by developing novel techniques and materials for non-invasive biofluid sampling, transport, management, and targeting unconventional biomarker sensing, which can be executed on both POC and wearable form factors. My training on sweat and interstitial fluid based epidermal biomedical devices during my PhD and postdoc makes me a suitable candidate for such research, where my research group world work at the intersection of device fabrication, sensor development, polymer chemistry, nanomaterials, colloids and interfacial science, microfluidics, electrochemistry, and in-vivo (on-body and clinical) validation. My research would also have the scope of seeking collaborations from electrical engineers (for electronic integration), data scientists (for correlation studies), and medical professionals (for clinical trials), eventually making it highly interdisciplinary by nature. My teaching interests would range from core courses such transport phenomena and thermodynamics to electives such as colloidal science and analytical chemistry, where I would focus on both the fundamental aspects and their application. Overall, as a faculty member, I intend on training and developing the next generation of chemical engineers for health-based research.