February 14, 2023

Spatially Resolved, Integrated Lab-on-Fiber Fluorescence Sensor for the Monitoring of Chronic and Acute Wounds

2nd Call, Tech Trans

Short Summary

In this project, we will exploit our expertise in sensing chemistry, medical textiles, and multimaterial fibers, to realize a non-invasive multisensing platform for monitoring metabolites in wound exudate. The fibers will directly incorporate the sensing chemistry while serving as the waveguide. For each selected metabolite (e.g., pH, glucose, protease, etc.), we will investigate and optimize the sensitivity and robustness of the existing sensing chemistry. Next, the multimaterial fibers will be functionalized with the appropriate chemistries and incorporated into textile patches/garments to allow spatial resolution in the detection. These patches will then be used for an extensive study in patients for monitoring healing in acute or chronic wounds. A special feature of this project is the detection in both time as well spatial resolution, as the monitoring will be followed over up to two weeks continuously.

Goals

Our goals are: the further development of our lab-on-fiber technologies to improve their sensitivity, specificity, and robustness; the incorporation of time and spatial resolved detection of the relevant metabolites; and the validation of the technologies in clinical settings.

Significance

Although we will focus on wound healing, the development of innovative optical sensing approaches will be beneficial for the monitoring of metabolites in wound or sweat indicative of other illnesses, such as psoriasis, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular or infectious diseases.

Background

Chronic wounds such as venous and diabetic foot ulcers affect 1-2 % of the population and represent 2-4 % of healthcare expenses; simultaneously, major acute injuries, as caused by blunt, penetrating trauma and burns, represent the most common causes of death and disability in the developed world, with approximately 900 million people suffering worldwide from acute injuries requiring specialized healthcare. Management of chronic and acute wound remains challenging: available methods based on visual signs and symptoms provide limited accuracy and strongly rely on the practitioner’s experience; moreover wound care technologies lack sufficient evidence of their impact to objectively support their utilization.

Publications

Giovannini, G.; Rossi, R.M.; Boesel, L.F. Changes in Optical Properties upon Dye–Clay Interaction: Experimental Evaluation and Applications. Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 197. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11010197
Giovannini, G.; Garoli, D.; Rupper, P.; Neels, A.; Rossi, R.M.; Boesel, L.F. Metal-Modified Montmorillonite as Plasmonic Microstructure for Direct Protein Detection. Sensors 2021, 21, 2655. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21082655