PFI: BIC: WearNet: Wearable Nanoplasmonic Biosensing Networks for Smart Health Monitoring & Diagnosis

电子、光电子、机电系统和无线通信领域的重大进步使紧凑型可穿戴设备的开发成为可能，这些设备在健身、健康和医学等不同领域得到了应用。尽管有潜力，但现有的可穿戴设备只能测量几个参数(例如，心率、呼吸、温度或血压)。在这些努力的同时，纳米技术正在推动微型传感器的开发，这种传感器可以在纳米级以前所未有的精度检测不同类型的人类健康事件。体内纳米传感系统可以在人体内实时操作，已经被提出为一种比传统技术提供更快、更准确的疾病诊断的方法。尽管这项技术具有潜力，但目前的系统存在几个限制，例如现有便携式系统的成本和体积，这限制了它在现实世界中的影响。本项目的目标是开发基于可穿戴纳米生物传感网络的先进健康监测和疾病诊断的智能服务系统。该系统由三部分组成：1)纳米等离子生物芯片，植入皮肤下，旨在对肺癌生物标志物做出反应；2)可穿戴智能手环，由纳米光子设备集成，用于激发和测量植入物；以及3)软件平台，处理测量信号，提取信息，并制定诊断方案。这项技术将极大地促进可穿戴设备的应用，因为它提供了检测不同类型的疾病，特别是癌症的手段。通过与固态电子和先进生物医疗设备领域的两位行业领先者和先驱合作，该项目有望实现癌症进展监测系统，产生广泛的社会影响。重要的是，将研究和工业与教育相结合是这一跨学科努力的优先事项，这将培养下一代学生科学家(支持6名博士生)。该项目包括四个相互交织的研究推动力。第一个重点是在这一智能医疗系统的基础上发展纳米等离子生物传感技术。这包括由多路传感器阵列组成的可植入纳米等离子生物芯片，用于从血液中的生物标记物检测肺癌，以及通过反射分别激发和测量生物传感信号所需的光学纳米源和纳米光电探测器，两者都集成在可穿戴设备中。第二个重点是软件算法的开发，以动态校准和操作纳米源，通过考虑体内无线信道在纳米光电探测器上采集和后处理测量信号，提取诊断信息，并与医疗保健提供者安全地共享收集的数据。第三个重点是影响整个系统设计的人为因素，包括纳米等离子生物芯片在生物组织中的影响和优化研究，为植入物继续运行而开发的生物芯片再生技术，纳米光子激发平台和植入物引入的光热效应的调查，以及与使用者健康相关的敏感数据的处理和分发。最后，第四个推力将为整个拟议的系统创建一个综合试验台，涉及利用肺癌患者的血液样本进行生物芯片的体外测试，使用植入具有血液微循环网络的组织等效模型中的生物芯片进行体外测试，以及在身体样本中进行测试。该项目由布法罗大学的一个跨学科研究团队领导，电气工程、化学、生物医学工程和整形外科系参与其中。英特尔实验室(俄勒冈州希尔斯伯勒，大型商业合作伙伴)和加伍德医疗设备公司(纽约州布法罗，创业合作伙伴)两个行业合作伙伴为该项目的发展做出了贡献并提供了支持。此外，罗斯威尔公园癌症研究所(纽约州布法罗)是一个癌症研究和治疗中心，它是该团队更广泛的背景合作伙伴和顾问。

Major advancements in the fields of electronics, photonics, electro-mechanical systems and wireless communication have enabled the development of compact wearable devices, with applications in diverse domains such as fitness, wellness and medicine. Despite their potential, existing wearable devices are only able to measure a few parameters (e.g., heart rate, breathing, temperature or blood pressure). In parallel to these efforts, nanotechnology is enabling the development of miniature sensors that can detect different types of human health events at the nanoscale with unprecedented accuracy. In-vivo nanosensing systems, which can operate inside the human body in real time, have been proposed as a way to provide faster and more accurate disease diagnosis over traditional technologies. Despite the potential of this technology, there are several limitations in the current systems, such as the cost and bulkiness of existing portable systems, which limit its real-world impact. The objective of this project is to develop a smart service system for advanced health monitoring and disease diagnosis based on wearable nano-biosensing networks. The system consists of three elements: 1) a nanoplasmonic biochip, to be implanted under the skin and designed to react to lung cancer biomarkers; 2) a wearable smart band, integrated by nanophotonic devices for excitation and measurement of the implant; and 3) a software platform to process the measured signals, extract the information, and formulate a diagnosis. This technology will significantly boost the applications of wearable devices, by providing the means to detect different types of diseases and, in particular, cancer. By partnering with two industry leaders and pioneers in the fields of solid-state electronics and advanced biomedical devices, this project is expected to enable cancer progression monitoring systems, with a broad societal impact. Importantly, integrating research and industry with education is a priority in this interdisciplinary effort, which will train the next generation of student scientists (6 doctoral students supported). The project encompasses four intertwined research thrusts. The first thrust is focused on the development of the nanoplasmonic biosensing technology at the basis of this smart health system. This includes an implantable nanoplasmonic biochip composed of multiplexed sensor arrays for lung cancer detection from biomarkers in blood, as well as the optical nano-sources and nano-photodetectors needed to respectively excite and measure the biosensing signals through reflection, both integrated in a wearable device. The second thrust is focused on the development of the software algorithms to dynamically calibrate and operate the nano-sources, collect and post-process the measured signals at the nano-photodetectors by considering the intra-body wireless channel, extract the diagnose information and securely share the collected data with the healthcare provider. The third thrust is focused on the human factors that impact the design of the entire system, including the study of the impact and optimization of the nanoplasmonic biochip in biological tissues, the development of biochip regeneration techniques for continued operation of the implant, the investigation of the photothermal effects introduced by the nanophotonic excitation platform and the implant, and the processing and distribution of sensitive data related to the users' health. Finally, the fourth thrust will create an integrated testbed for the entire proposed system, involving in-vitro testing of the biochips with blood samples of lung cancer patients, ex-vivo testing with biochips implanted in tissue-equivalent phantoms with blood microcirculation networks, and testing in cadaver specimens.The project is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University at Buffalo with participation of the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and Orthopedics. Two industry partners contribute and support the development of this project, Intel Labs (Hillsboro, Oregon, large business partner) and Garwood Medical Devices (Buffalo, NY, start-up partner). In addition, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (Buffalo, NY), a cancer research and treatment center, serves as a broader context partner and consultant to the team.