Wearable Sweat Sensor Patch (Sensors USA 2019)

Wearable sweat sensing is a rapidly rising research driven by its promising potential in health, fitness, and diagnostic applications. Despite the technological advancements, sweat sensing is primarily restricted at a proof-of-concept phase due to limited understanding of sweat metrics in relation to physiological state. BSAC research aims to understand sweat dynamics holistically to advance sweat testing in exercise physiology and medical health monitoring. This session shows potentials of these sweat sensors in medical diagnosis such as cystic fibrosis and in monitoring physiological status. It also presents sensors based on microfluidic chips for effective sweat sampling and roll-to-roll (R2R) fabricated sweat patches for high-throughput manufacturing of sweat sensors. BSAC utilizes these highly-reproducible R2R sweat sensors for investigating regional sweat compositions, predicting whole-body fluid/electrolyte loss during exercise, uncovering relationships between sweat metrics, and tracking glucose dynamics to explore sweat-to-blood correlations. The results indicate that these sweat sensors are a crucial tool for advancing sweat testing beyond the research stage by decoding the physiological information contained in sweat.

Hnin Yin Nyein is a researcher advised by Professor Ali Javey at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC, University of California, Berkeley. She is a recipient of National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship. She has expertise on flexible electronics, biosensors, and electrochemical devices and has experiences working with medical experts and industrial companies to advance sweat testing to point-of-care diagnostics in exercise physiology and medical health monitoring applications.

Smart phones, cars, and wearable activity trackers are just a few examples of products with sensors based on technologies pioneered at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center, a Graduated NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Micro/Nanoelectromechanical Sensors & Systems (MEMS/NEMS). New research at BSAC will have even greater impacts on consumer, industrial, and medical products.