Principal Investigator Tomas Palacios
Co-investigator Jing Kong
Miniaturized sensors equipped with communication capabilities enable a new paradigm of sensing in areas such as health care and environmental monitoring. For example, instead of a patient measuring blood sugar by pricking a nger and analyzing a drop of blood externally, a microscopic sensor platform in the blood stream could sense the glucose concentration internally and communicate data to the outside world non-invasively.
In this project, we work towards this vision by developing a microscopic sensor platform, called a synthetic cell (SynCell) that can sense chemical substances in liquid media. The concept of the first SynCell demonstration is shown. After fabrication, the SynCells are lifted off and dispersed in water. Upon exposure to a specific substance, the chemical sensors onboard the SynCell are designed to permanently change their electrical resistance. Later on, they will be retrieved by using magnetic pads and analyzed externally.
During the last year, we improved our SynCell fabrication process and increased our transistor yield significantly. Furthermore, we successfully demonstrated chemical detection of triethylamine. As next steps, we want to explore the behavior of our SynCells in microfluidic channels and investigate ways to include time-awareness in these systems.