SBIR Phase I: Internet-Connected Urinalysis System for Passive Health Monitoring

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的广泛影响是，通过开发一种用于个性化饮食建议、疾病早期诊断和远程患者监测的被动健康和健康监测系统，帮助管理和预防非传染性慢性疾病。根据《2019年全球疾病负担最新情况》，全球每5例死亡中就有1例以上是由于饮食摄入不佳造成的，这使其成为最大的可预防疾病风险因素。几十年的研究表明，追踪营养摄入可以让人们更好地了解饮食摄入模式，改善营养健康。然而，尽管饮食追踪手机应用程序很受欢迎，但它们并不准确，而且负担过重，因此经常导致戒烟。此外，在诊断大多数慢性病之前等待出现健康并发症会缩短健康跨度，并导致成本更高的卫生保健干预措施。社会需要一种被动的营养和健康监测设备，以帮助个人在日常基础上识别营养不良模式，指导终身行为改变和早期识别疾病的生物标志物。该平台技术将降低与大多数主要慢性疾病相关的发病率和死亡率，降低医疗保健成本，并减少生产力损失。拟议的项目将解决将无线电化学生物传感器测试平台集成到厕所中进行被动尿液分析测试的可行性。更好的预防性医疗保健要求个人在临床问题出现之前就定期监测健康和福祉。然而，让个体进行一致的常规诊断评估是极其困难的。对健康数据进行常规监测的最有效途径是通过普遍检测。美国的负担尽可能不存在。使用配备生物传感器的联网智能马桶进行精确尿液检测，无处不在的、被动的、常规的家庭尿液检测在临床和商业上都有机会。关键的技术障碍包括开发一个能够可靠收集尿液和稀释归一化的系统，污染计算，开发一个强大的机电一体化子组件，用于被动检索、翻译、测试和存储一次性电化学生物传感器，生物识别用户，以及集成无线数据传输能力和智能电源管理。与错误的测试周期启动、错误的生物传感器操作、稀释和污染核算以及错误的用户识别相关的错误率将被量化，电化学生物传感器？将现场测试结果与台式等效测试结果进行比较。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to help manage and prevent non-communicable chronic diseases by developing a passive health and wellness monitoring system for personalized dietary recommendations, early disease diagnosis, and remote patient monitoring. According to the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Update, suboptimal dietary intake is responsible for more than 1 out of every 5 deaths globally, making it the greatest preventable disease risk factor. Decades of research have shown that tracking nutritional intake can lead to better awareness of dietary intake patterns and improve nutritional health. Yet diet-tracking mobile apps, despite their popularity, are inaccurate and overly burdensome and thus often lead to quitting. In addition, waiting for health complications to develop before diagnosing most chronic diseases reduces healthspans and leads to more costly healthcare interventions. There is a societal need for a passive nutrition and health-monitoring device for helping individuals recognize patterns of malnutrition on a routine basis for guiding lifelong behavior change and identifying biomarkers of disease early. This platform technology will reduce morbidity and mortality associated with most major chronic diseases, decrease healthcare costs, and reduce lost productivity.The proposed project will address the feasibility of integrating a wireless, electrochemical biosensor testing platform into a toilet for passive urinalysis testing. Better preventative healthcare requires individuals to monitor health and wellbeing routinely, long before clinical problems arise. Yet getting individuals to perform consistent, routine diagnostic evaluations is exceedingly difficult. The most effective route for routine monitoring of health data is through pervasive testing where the individual?s burden is as nonexistent as possible. There is a clinical and commercial opportunity for ubiquitous, passive, and routine home urine testing using an internet-connected smart-toilet equipped with biosensors for accurate urine-testing. Key technical hurdles include the development of a system capable of reliable urine collection and dilution normalization, contamination accounting, the development of a robust mechatronic sub-assembly for passively retrieving, translating, testing, and storing disposable electrochemical biosensors, biometric user identification, and integration of wireless data transfer capabilities with smart power management. Error rates associated with false test cycle starts, faulty biosensor manipulation, dilution and contamination accounting, and false user identification will be quantified, and the electrochemical biosensors? in situ test results will be compared against benchtop equivalents.?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.