Wearable Microsystem Array for Acute Pollutant Exposure Assessment

描述（由申请人提供）：目前用于确定个人暴露于有毒空气污染物与不良健康结果之间联系的方法存在暴露监测时间和空间粒度有限以及缺乏实时分析以建立个人暴露概况与健康影响之间因果关系的缺点。该提案的目标是：1）为研究人员提供一种新的工具，以更好地评估污染物暴露对呼吸道和心血管疾病的影响; 2）为个人提供一种廉价的可穿戴设备，用于实时报告暴露数据，以提供个性化警报和管理式护理服务。从长远来看，对空气有毒物质的医学认识的显著提高将有助于对有毒空气污染物进行更相关的监管，并制定更有效的个人预防计划。为了实现这些目标，我们建议探索几种关键技术和方法，使实施一种新的可穿戴，自主，传感器阵列微系统急性多污染物暴露评估，实时监测有毒气体和挥发性有机化合物，最初针对二氧化硫，氮氧化物，一氧化碳，臭氧，甲醛，乙醛，苯和邻硝基苯。拟议的暴露评估微型系统将整合到一个廉价的拇指大小的装置中，该装置具有克服现有空气污染仪器的局限性所需的所有传感、信号调节和数据分析。这些突破性的能力将通过创新来实现，包括1）传感器微系统所有层的系统设计，以独特地实现所需的系统属性，2）开发新的，可重复使用的离子液体电化学传感器，3）结合多模式电化学技术，以增强分析信息内容，实现灵敏度改进，自动漂移校准，以及用少量的物理传感器元件感测不同的污染物，以及4）设计用于目标分析物的实时分类和定量的计算高效的传感器阵列处理算法。该项目将追求以下具体目标：目标1：开发和表征用于检测和量化多种空气污染物的小型化电化学传感器阵列，目标2：开发紧凑，节能，仪器电子和异构传感器阵列处理算法，以实现自主可穿戴微系统，目标3：集成和表征多污染物电化学微系统模型，并将其在现场的性能与标准暴露评估设备进行比较。通过准确性，可靠性，小尺寸，低功耗，实时测量和自主操作的组合，拟议的系统将提供革命性的能力，个人暴露监测和研究，治疗和预防急性暴露于空气有毒物质的健康影响。我们的高技能，多学科 该团队在电化学传感器接口设计和表征、集成微阵列和微电子仪器开发以及空气污染物的暴露评估和健康影响方面具有专业知识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Current methods for identifying links between an individual's exposure to toxic air pollutants and adverse health outcomes suffer shortcomings of limited temporal and spatial granularity in exposure monitoring and the lack of real-time analysis to establish a causal relationship between an individual's exposure profile and impact on health. The goals of this proposal are 1) to provide researchers with a new tool to better assess the impacts of pollutant exposure to respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and 2) to provide individuals with an inexpensive wearable device for real-time reporting of exposure data for personalized alerts and managed care services. In the long term, a significantly improved medical understanding of air toxics would allow more relevant regulation of toxic air pollutants and more effective personal prevention plans. To achieve these goals, we propose to explore several key technologies and approaches that will enable implementation of a novel wearable, autonomous, sensor array microsystem for acute multi-pollutant exposure assessment, with real-time monitoring of toxic gases and volatile organic compounds, initially targeting SO2, NOx, CO, ozone, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzene, and o-nitrobenzene. The proposed exposure assessment microsystem will integrate into an inexpensive thumb-sized device with all of the sensing, signal conditioning and data analysis necessary to overcome the limitations of existing air pollution instruments. These groundbreaking capabilities will be accomplished through innovations including 1) systematic design across all layers of the sensor microsystem to uniquely achieve desired system attributes, 2) development of new, miniaturizable, ionic liquid electrochemical sensors, 3) incorporation of multi-mode electrochemical techniques to enhance analytical information content, enabling sensitivity improvement, automated drift calibration, and sensing of diverse pollutants with a small number of physical sensor elements, and 4) design of computationally efficient sensor array processing algorithms for real-time classification and quantification of target analytes. This project will pursue the following specifc aims: Aim 1: Develop and characterize a miniaturized electrochemical sensor array for detection and quantification of multiple air pollutants, Aim 2: Develop compact, energy efficient, instrumentation electronics and heterogeneous sensor array processing algorithms to enable an autonomous wearable microsystem, Aim 3: Integrate and characterize a model multi-pollutant electrochemical microsystem and benchmark its performance in the field against standard exposure assessment equipment. Through a combination of accuracy, reliability, small size, low power, real-time measurement, and autonomous operation, the proposed system will provide revolutionary capability to individual exposure monitoring and the study, treatment, and prevention of health impacts of acute exposure to air toxics. Our highly skilled, multidisciplinary team has expertise in electrochemical sensor interface design and characterization, integrated microarray and microelectronic instrumentation development, and exposure assessment and health effects of air pollutants.