Ubiquitous Optical Healthcare Technologies (ubOHT) Programme Grant

愿景：推动和促进能够转化为低成本监测的光学生物传感技术的进步，并在医疗保健低成本传感领域建立一个广泛的英国社区。精准医疗根据患者的个体特征量身定制医疗保健。我们现在正在进入一个精确健康的新时代，它转向健康的个体，询问我们如何通过适当的干预来预防疾病，延长健康的寿命。新的挑战包括迫切需要精确的技术来监测个人的一生，以及改进的方法来解释这些丰富的数据。精确健康需要新的物理生物传感器，这种传感器成本低，但能获取丰富的生化信息，并能在诊所外使用。这就解放了临床医生的时间，集中了稀缺的资源。开发从传感器中提取/利用下游患者特定信息的方法至关重要。目前的范例（“生物传感器1.0”）是可穿戴设备（如Fitbit、Apple watch），它们只记录表面参数(如：温度、加速度、血氧合)，而葡萄糖/胰岛素传感器只能提供非常具体的数据；用负担得起的便携式设备提供全面分析信息的主要挑战仍然是医疗保健的关键。SARS - CoV-2侧流检测普及了个性化疾病检测的概念，并表明它可以成为现实，但它们缺乏敏感性、可靠和一致的解释以及强大的报告能力。从概念到市场，聚集在这里的领导小组在生物传感领域的新范式中具有开创性的光学方法的记录。他们共同提议协同探索“生物传感器2.0”的基础科学，并开发满足临床需求的关键示范，同时建立一个更广泛的英国学术界，中小企业，研究所和临床医生社区，以推动这一范式成为真正的示范。目前的便携式传感器过于简单，功能有限。相反，我们需要将先进的实验室技术转化为便携式设备。系统方面需要注意，而小型化是具有挑战性的。传感器应该实现多路复用，使用机器学习算法来解释结果，自动校准以确保长期运行，适应不断变化的条件，并达到各种生物流体所需的足够小的检测极限。这是一个关键时刻，因为其他国家将开始在这一领域发展，尽管目前还没有明确的存在——作为英国主要提供者的NHS可能是一个伟大的驱动力。我们还专注于社区建设，有针对性的活动，以确保英国能够利用传感器的发展。通过在更广泛的传感器生态系统中为研究委员会建立一个“有意义”的大想法，我们的团队与EPSRC一起确定了英国缺乏领导力和联合的学术-工业-政府网络。通过与从中小企业到大型实体（NPL、CPI、LGC、图灵等）和跨国公司（宝洁、阿斯利康等）的广泛利益相关者合作，我们发现，新型生物传感器的应用领域不仅在医院，还在工业环境中，对它们有着强烈的需求和市场吸引力。利用光物质相互作用的新方法（英国在这方面具有国际优势）进行现实的生物诊断需要广泛的跨学科研究重点。这种融合旨在发展全新的未来产业，并为英国的跨学科科学基础注入活力，这在未来50年至关重要，因为我们实现了生物传感器2.0的新范式。

Vision: to drive and promote advances in optical biosensing capable of translation to low-cost monitoring, and to build a broad UK community in low-cost sensing for healthcare.Precision medicine tailors healthcare to individual patient characteristics. We are now entering a new era of precision health, which shifts towards healthy individuals, asking how we prevent disease with appropriate interventions, prolonging healthy lifespans. New challenges include the urgent need for precise technologies to monitor individuals throughout life, and for improved methods to interpret this wealth of data. Precision health demands new physical biosensors that are low-cost but elicit rich biochemical information and can be used outside the clinic. This frees up clinician-time and focusses scarce resources. It is vital to develop methods to extract/exploit downstream patient-specific information from the sensors. Current exemplars ('BioSensors 1.0') are wearable devices (such as Fitbit, Apple watch), which record only superficial parameters (eg. temperature, acceleration, blood oxygenation), while glucose/insulin sensors provide only very specific data; the major challenge of providing comprehensive analytical information with an affordable portable device remains key for healthcare. The SARS CoV-2 lateral flow tests popularised the notion of personalised disease testing and showed it can be a reality however they lack sensitivity, reliable and consistent interpretation, and robust reporting capabilities. The leading groups assembled here have a track record of pioneering optical approaches for new paradigms in the biosensing domain, from conception through to market. Together, they propose to synergistically explore the underpinning fundamental science of 'BioSensors 2.0' and develop key demonstrators that address clinical needs while building a broader UK community of academics, SMEs, institutes, & clinicians to drive this paradigm to real demonstrators.Current portable sensors are too simple and limited in their capability. Instead, we need to translate advanced lab-based technologies into portable devices. Systems aspects need care, while miniaturisation is challenging. Sensors should achieve multiplexing, use machine learning algorithms to interpret outcomes, auto-calibrate to ensure long term operation, survive changing conditions, and attain small-enough limits of detection required for various biofluids. This is a time-critical juncture, as other countries will start to develop in this space, though nothing explicitly exists yet- the NHS as the main UK provider may be a great driver.We also focus on community building, with targeted activities to ensure the UK is placed to capitalise on sensor developments. Through building a Big Idea 'Making Senses' for the Research Councils across the wider Sensors ecosystem, our team identified with EPSRC the lack of UK leadership and joined-up academia-industry-govt networks. Engaging with a wide range of stakeholders from SMEs to large entities (NPL, CPI, LGC, Turing..) and multinationals (P&G, AstraZeneca,..), we find strong appetite and market pull for new types of biosensors with application domains beyond the hospital, as well as industrial settings. New ways to leverage light-matter interactions (in which the is UK internationally strong) for realistic biodiagnostics demands a broad interdisciplinary research focus. This confluence aims to develop entirely new industries of the future, and to energise the UK interdisciplinary science base, which is vital over the next 50 years as we realise the new paradigm of BioSensors 2.0.