Design of a polymeric microneedles platform for non-invasive and real-time monitoring of physiological parameters

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Home-based monitoring could drastically improve currently available diagnostic procedures, and is the subject of active research from both the academic and industrial sectors. ***Microneedles (MNs), micron-sized needles arrays able to non-invasively access the living skin layers, have provided very promising results for drug delivery purposes, and are currently being investigated for diagnostic applications. Indeed, the skin layer carries by far more information on the health state of an individual than envisioned. For diagnostic applications, MNs have been mostly used as painless devices for fluid sampling, and biopotential measurements. However, these processes are hampered by the concentrations of most biomarkers in the upper dermis, which are too low to be reproducibly extracted. With this research program, I envisage to explore a new strategy for non-invasive extraction of physiological information from the skin. ***The overall goal of this work consists in implementing and characterizing a versatile platform of polymeric MNs for non-invasive dermal delivery of on-purpose-designed fluorogenic sensing molecules able to monitor and quantify in real-time several dermal biomarkers. In this feasibility research program, we will focus, in particular, on the monitoring of three physiological parameters:***1. Inflammation***2. Lymphatic drainage function***3. Skin enzymatic metabolism***Groundbreaking research will be performed to custom-modify fluorogenic sensing molecules for these specific applications, and to optimize the microfabrication process of MNs with ideal structural properties. Once applied on the skin, fluorogenic sensing probes-loaded MNs will generate functional tattoos allowing the real-time monitoring of specific biological markers using a simple fluorescence detector. The three selected applications are based on very different sensing mechanisms and will allow the evaluation of the actual versatility and robustness of the whole research idea. However, this non-invasive concept could be further extended to several other applications, opening new exciting research horizons. Overall, the requested funding will allow me to investigate the actual potentials of this vision and to start a fruitful and independent research career.