UC San Diego

Wearable biosensors represent a promising opportunity to continuously and non-invasively track human physiology through dynamic measurements of chemical markers in bio-fluids such as sweat, tears, saliva and interstitial fluid. Such biosensing platforms can thus offer real-time biochemical information toward a more comprehensive view of a wearer’s health, performance or stress at the molecular level. The growing recent interest in wearable and mobile technologies has led to increased research efforts toward development of non-invasive biomarker monitoring platforms. Continuous biomonitoring addresses the limitations of finger-stick blood testing and provides the opportunity for optimal therapeutic interventions. My research for Ph. D is focused on developing wearable sensors and biosensors along with non-invasive biosensing opportunities and the potential impact of such wearable devices on our daily life. The present thesis covers the key target analytes and applications along with innovative biosensing technologies that have had a major impact on the reliability and applicability of such devices. These advances and opportunities are discussed along with the bottlenecks and gaps for realizing effective wearable biosensors in practical healthcare and performance monitoring. The specific sensing requirements and operational challenges associated with each bio-fluid are discussed separately along with potential target analytes and corresponding wearable platforms.