École de Technologie Supérieure

Published purpose

In keeping elders at home for longer, there is a need to remotely and frequently monitor their health condition and to provide the data to the care givers. This project aims at developing sensors for noninvasive and continuous sampling of biomarkers relevant to assess a senior's health condition. A sensor array, akin to an electronic nose, will be designed and built to detect and identify biomarkers such as acetone (diabetes, lung cancer), ammonia (liver diseases), nitric oxide (asthma, COPD), hydrogen disulfide (asthma, airways inflammation) and isoprene (lung cancer) in the breath of individuals. Carbon nanotube field-effect transistor sensing elements will be fabricated as to yield different signals to biomarkers, and assembled in a single sensing system. The array of sensing elements will provide a unique signature for each biomarker to identify the biomarker marker presence and to quantify its concentration in order to issue an early warning of a change in the health condition. Moreover, an electronic skin will be developed where an electrochemical device based on carbon nanotubes will be used to detect specifically glucose and/or cortisol in eccrine sweat. The electrochemical sensor will be coupled to a microfluidic component to sample, concentrate, guide and evacuate the sweat as worn as a patch directly on the skin. The sensors will serve as functional wearables to be integrated in IoT. Better data on the elders' health status will enable a faster and more targeted response to health concerns, and will promote informed decision-making by the individual, the care givers and the health practitioners.