Design of Health Technologies

lecture 12

John Canny
10/17/05

Advanced Sensing Systems

Biosensors:
Glucose monitoring
Other systems

Magneto-elastic sensors
(Grimes)

The magneto-elastic material resonates at a

characteristic frequency when excited by a
magnetic field.

Magneto-elastic sensors
The magneto-elastic ribbon is made of a
commercial sheet called Metglas.
The polymer is a custom co-polymer made by the
Grimes group. It is believed to work because
glucose bonds to sites on polymer chains that
separate them from other chains. This allows the
polymer to absorb water.

Magneto-elastic sensors
Its frequency response (in air) shows a sharp peak
which is determined by the density of the
polymer layer

Magneto-elastic sensors
Resonant frequency in a liquid is lower, and the
peak is not as sharp.

Magneto-elastic sensors
Frequency response in water varies with the glucose
concentration, in an almost perfectly linear
curve.

Sensor measurement
The electronics are simple. A sharp spike is applied
to a driving coil, and a response is measured in a
sense coil.

Sensor measurement
The magnetic spike is short, about 3 gauss for 16
micro-seconds (earths magnetic field is about 0.5
gauss, and a refrigerator magnet about 10 gauss).
The pickup coil measures sensor activity for a further
8 milli-seconds. The response is transformed with
an FFT to determine the frequency peak.
This should be easy to do with a small, batterypowered device. Because the sensors response is
quite slow (tens of minutes to respond), it is
enough to take readings every few minutes.

Biosensor status
There are many promising systems on the horizon,
but the only commercially-deployed biosensors
are glucose monitors (~$4B). 3 main types:
Single Use: Disposable sensing material, often
static measurement. Cheap and portable, but
low sensitivity and accuracy.
Intermittent Use: Often use hydrodynamics
generally much better performance from sensing
a moving fluid. Its still a challenge to move these
out of the lab and onto a chip.

Biosensor status
Continuous (In Vivo) Sensors: Very economical,
but very hard to calibrate and may suffer from
unknown amount of drift.

Biosensor design
We give a brief introduction to micro-fluidic sensor
design.
While these were originally fabricated in silicon using
MEMS techniques, the trend is toward glass and
plastic as the substrate.
Both glass and many plastics allow optical
measurements, but silicon is opaque to visible light.
Glass and plastic are also more resistant to
contamination from the chemicals used in the
measurement.

Biosensor design
Surface immobilization: The first step is sensing
is creating a selective surface to react to the
sensed agent

Biosensor design
Bead immobilization: A variation that uses beads
to increase relative surface area.

Biosensor design
Detection: Several methods, including resonant
frequency of MEMS cantilevers. But amperometry
(current measurement) is the most widely used
approach. Typical mechanisms for current flow
include redox cycles between the target group
and variants.

Biosensor design
Optical Detection: A 2D
array of agent/antigen
reactions produces
fluorescent traces:

Biosensor design
Magnetic Detection: The antibodies are
immobilized on a surface and magnetic beads
bind to sites where the analyte is attached.

Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent
Assay

Reuse
Most immunosensors use bound antibodies and
immobilization. Removing the bound species can be
difficult without destroying the sensors.
Methods and results vary, but a recent detector for
Chagas disease used glycine-HCl to wash the
sensor, and reported efficacy for more than 30
cycles.

Biosensor design
Systems-on-a-chip: are promising but coming
slowly. Biosensing still seems a long way from
commercial viability. But there are some
promising prototypes:

Discussion Questions
1.

It may be a while before we have highly

integrated sensors for many pathogens (and
economics dictates that they will come for firstworld diseases first). Can you think of
telemedicine/information tools to help facilitate
traditional (but simple) lab methods?

2.

Sensors for medical diagnosis may always be a

difficult economic proposition. Can you think of
other models that might work? E.g. home
testing?