Wearable Photonics for Continuous Health Monitoring

The continuous monitoring of health indicators in biofluids such as sweat, saliva, blood, and urine has great potential for preventive medicine. Techniques that continuously monitor biomarkers still remain a major technological challenge. Recently, a concept of dynamic biosensing was published that is based on mediator particles. Such mediator particles exhibit rapid switching between a bound and unbound state during interaction with a probing structure to which they are connected through a molecular tether (like a balloon on a string). Although the concept of using mediator particles for dynamics biosensing is very promising, the used detection method is not a viable solution as it is not miniaturizable. We propose to use a photonic ring resonator (RR) or Mach-Zender interferometer (MZI) as the probing structure in combination with a highly miniaturizable readout scheme. In this project, we perform preliminary experiments to prove that this photonic approach can be used for the detection of the mediator particles tethered to the photonic waveguide. To bridge the gap with the practical application by health professionals, we will enrich the envisioned solution through OnePlanet's OpenEd program. OpenEd aims to share technology and innovations (e.g. prototypes) with educational institutes (MBO, HBO) that want to further innovate their courses or work methods, such that current and future professionals are well prepared to work with new (digital) technologies. By presenting our use-case as a 'challenge' to teachers, students and practitioners, OpenEd also allows enriching the use-case by involving (future) health professionals that can provide feedback on - or further investigation of - the practical application of our new technology from the health professional's perspective.