Foresight Fellowship in Manufacturing: Defining and Fabricating New Passive Bio-Sensing Wireless Tag Technologies

该奖学金将使用3名选定的国际领先研究人员来帮助开发被动生物传感器，作为通过添加剂制造技术进行广泛制造的候选者。这些传感器将被无线读取，它们将是微型的，并直接集成到医疗植入物、包装或转移纹身的表面。传感器可以大量生产，或者它们可能非常具体，这意味着只需要很少的几个。因此，在本地生产喷墨式添加剂是非常可取的。当这些通信传感器可以制造得很薄、很便宜、很可靠时，它们就可以广泛应用，并将形成物联网的使能技术。国际研究人员是伊利诺伊州的约翰·罗杰斯教授、坦佩雷的莉娜·乌科宁教授和罗马的盖塔诺·马罗科教授。制造研究是由曼彻斯特数字制造中心的S·叶茨教授支持的。如果无线传感器要非常低调和便宜，它就不能有电池，这意味着它必须是无源的。基于射频识别(RFID)技术的一些应变、湿度、化学蒸气和压力传感器正在开发中。这些传感器提供了实现物联网的潜力，但它们没有检测引起感染的微生物产品等生物制剂所需的非常高的灵敏度或选择性。此外，传感器及其天线直接与功能材料集成，这使得它们的制造成为一个复杂的问题，而且与集成技术相比，它们的尺寸往往很大。生产无源无线生物传感器是一项重大挑战，跨越了几个学科的界限：生物科学、材料科学、电子工程、化学、墨水配方和添加剂制造。创造一种换能器，将微小的探头响应转换为足够大的电变化，以调制RFID链路的传输，这是关键。当一个特定的“感测”参数出现时，这将影响与天线基板或其馈电匹配系统相关的介电常数的显著变化。要获得足够大的电容或电导率变化，需要功能材料科学和天线工程方面的专业知识。拟议的传感器将需要制造工艺来实现目前无法生产的结构，或者需要高端工具和净室工艺，这增加了制造无源无线生物传感器的障碍。尽管微系统无线传感器集成到表面有许多潜在的应用，但本次联谊会考虑的具体应用首先是检测语音假体中硅胶瓣膜上的生物膜，其次是开发用于皮肤健康监测的高效表皮传感标签。这项工作确定的关键挑战是：1.获得对小浓度的敏感性和生物制剂的选择性2。实现生物传感探头与无源无线终端之间的高效传感。将活性生物活性功能材料掺入表面4。制造激活的传感微系统这些挑战将通过3项活动来解决：(A)与Leena Ukkonen教授在芬兰坦佩雷进行微表面图案和3D微系统生物传感悬臂的附加制造。(B)与Gaetano Marrocco教授在意大利罗马合作在生物兼容材料上创建自动调谐表层标签。(C)与美国伊利诺伊州的John Rogers教授一起确定整合到表皮系统中的最佳技术组合，并规划未来的制造技术。生物科学和材料科学的专门知识分别由C.Gourlay和S.Holder博士在肯特郡提供。

The fellowship will use 3 selected international leading researchers to help develop passive Biosensors as candidates for widespread fabrication by additive manufacturing techniques. These sensors will be read wirelessly, they will be microscale and directly integrated into surfaces of medical implants, packaging or transfer tattoos. The sensors could be produced in great numbers, or they may be very specific meaning only a few are needed. Therefore, producing them locally by inkjet style additive manufacture is highly desirable. When these communicating sensors can be made very thin, very cheap and reliable, they can be widely applied and will form an enabling technology of the Internet of Things. The international researchers are Profs John Rogers in Illinois, Leena Ukkonen in Tampere and Prof Gaetano Marrocco in Rome. The manufacturing research is underpinned by Prof S Yeates at the Manchester Centre for Digital Fabrication.If a wireless sensor is to be very low profile and cheap, it cannot have a battery meaning it must be passive. Some strain, dampness, chemical vapour and pressure sensors are being developed based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. These sensors offer potential to enable the Internet of Things, but they do not have the very high sensitivity or selectivity required to detect a biological agent such as the microbial products that cause infection. Additionally, the sensors and their antennas are directly integrated with functional materials that currently makes their manufacturing a complex issue and they are often large in size compared to integrated technologies. Producing passive wireless biosensors is a major challenge and cross several discipline boundaries: Bioscience, materials science, electronic engineering, chemistry, ink formulation and additive manufacture. Creating a transducer that converts a small probe response to a large enough electrical change to modulate the transmission of the RFID link is key. This pivots on effecting a significant change in permittivity associated with an antenna substrate or its feed matching system when a particular 'sensed' parameter occurs. Obtaining a sufficiently large change in capacitance or conductivity requires expertise in functional materials science and antenna engineering. The proposed sensors will require manufacturing processes to realize structures that are not currently producible, or that require high-end tooling and clean room processes which compounds the barriers to manufacturing passive wireless biosensors. Although there are many potential applications of microsystem wireless sensors integrated into surfaces, the specific applications considered in this fellowship are firstly to detect biofilms on silicone valves in voice prostheses and secondly, to develop efficient epidermal sensing tags for skin based health monitoring. The identified key challenges of the work are:1. Obtaining sensitivity to small concentrations, and selectivity of, bio-agents2. Achieving efficient transducing between bio-sensing probe and passive wireless terminal3. Incorporation of active bio-active functional materials onto surfaces4. Fabrication of activated sensing microsystemsThese challenges will be met through 3 activities: (a) Additive manufacture of Micro-Surface Patterning and 3D Micro-system bio-sensing cantilevers with Prof Leena Ukkonen in Tampere, Finland.(b) Creating Auto-Tuning Epidermal Tags on Bio-Compatible Materials with Prof Gaetano Marrocco in Rome, Italy.(c) Identifying optimal technology combinations for integration into epidermal systems and road mapping future manufacturing techniques with Prof John Rogers in Illinois, US. The bioscience and materials science expertise is provided at Kent by Drs C. Gourlay and S. Holder respectively.