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Enabling sweat-based biosensors: Solving the problem of low biomarker concentration in sweat

Jajack, Andrew J
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6054-7193
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522165199222908

Abstract Details

2018, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Engineering and Applied Science: Biomedical Engineering.
Non-invasive, sweat biosensing will enable the development of an entirely new class of wearable devices capable of assessing health on a minute-to-minute basis. Every aspect of healthcare stands to benefit: prevention (activity tracking, stress-level monitoring, over-exertion alerting, dehydration warning), diagnosis (early-detection, new diagnostic techniques), and management (glucose tracking, drug-dose monitoring). Currently, blood is the gold standard for measuring the level of most biomarkers in the body. Unlike blood, sweat can be measured outside of the body with little inconvenience. While some biomarkers are produced in the sweat gland itself, most are produced elsewhere and must diffuse into sweat. These biomarkers come directly from blood or interstitial fluid which surrounds the sweat gland. However, a two-cell thick epithelium acts as barrier and dilutes most biomarkers in sweat. As a result, many biomarkers that would be useful to monitor are diluted in sweat to concentrations below what can be detected by current biosensors. This is a core challenge that must be overcome before the advantages of sweat biosensing can be fully realized. The objective of this dissertation is to develop methods of concentrating biomarkers in sweat to bring them into range of available biosensors. This dissertation will encompass both the physiological understanding of how biomarkers enter sweat as well as two strategies for increasing concentration: technological and biological. The technological strategy involves a novel microfluidic-based biofluid preconcentration device. The biological strategy takes advantage of paracellular permeability enhancers in combination with reverse iontophoresis to increase biomarker flux into sweat, thereby increasing the concentration in sweat. Increasing the concentration of biomarkers in sweat is expected to improve the detection of previously hard-to-detect biomarkers, making sweat biosensing a more viable option for health monitoring.
Jason Heikenfeld, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Richard Heller, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Chia-Ying Lin, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Yoonjee Park, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Giovanni Pauletti, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
73 p.
Biomedical Research
wearables; sweat biosensing; chelation; electroosmosis; microfluidics; sample processing

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jajack, A. J. (2018). Enabling sweat-based biosensors: Solving the problem of low biomarker concentration in sweat [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522165199222908

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jajack, Andrew. Enabling sweat-based biosensors: Solving the problem of low biomarker concentration in sweat. 2018. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522165199222908.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jajack, Andrew. "Enabling sweat-based biosensors: Solving the problem of low biomarker concentration in sweat." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522165199222908

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1522165199222908
350
© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Enabling sweat-based biosensors: Solving the problem of low biomarker concentration in sweat by Andrew J Jajack is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.