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Towards wireless Microfluidic Sensors for acute clinical care

Abstract:
Portable, wearable biomedical devices are becoming possible through recent advances in microfluidic technologies, microelectronics, sensors and biosensors. Using miniaturize and carefully engineered smart designs we can embed computer control and analytical best practice into portable, even wearable devices that are able to compensate for the shortcomings of real-world sensors, such as failing performance. My group specializes in designing and building such microfluidic systems to meet the needs of acute critical care medicine. These hybrid microfluidic systems appear to these clinical users as simple stable systems that tell them what they want to know. Key molecular markers are measured using both optical and electrochemical sensors and biosensors. We then work with clinical care teams to demonstrate the value of the real-time continuous chemical information that microfluidic systems can produce. Our ultimate goal is that such systems can be used to monitor patients and guide therapy in a patient-specific, personalized way.

Biosketch:
Martyn Boutelle is Professor of Biomedical Sensors Engineering at the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. He has recently been Deputy Department Chair, and is currently a College Consul for the Faculty of Engineering and Business School. His research group is genuinely multidisciplinary comprising, bioengineers, scientists and clinicians. He develops novel analytical science methods using microfluidics, electrochemical sensors and biosensors, and wireless electronics to make portable, wearable monitoring devices. He then uses these in a program of clinical science research focusing on the acute traumatic brain injury, kidney transplantation and athlete monitoring. The same measurement techniques are used in patients and in experimental models allowing genuine translational research. Professor Boutelle is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He obtained a BSc and PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College and worked as an EP Abraham Research Fellow in the Physiology Department of University of Oxford.