Saint Mary’s University

Published purpose

Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics has the central aim of providing accurate and rapid identification of disease during the first clinical visit, thereby reducing loss-to-follow up and lowering costs within the healthcare system. While this field is ever-growing, there is a need for real-time, continuous monitoring of human health, which can be accomplished using wearable devices. While wearable devices which monitor physical parameters (heart rate, blood pressure) exist already, wearable sensors which monitor chemical biomarkers in bodily fluids have yet to be commercially developed. In this research, we will advance our already successful fabric-based plasmonic electrode chip technology towards the end goal of detection of human health biomarkers in sweat, a "headband of the future". Specifically, we will focus on identifying elevated levels of stress biomarkers in an effort to reduce the occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder for certain occupations, including military personnel and front-line health care workers.