Research Projects

Lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disorders, type II diabetes, obesity, and certain forms of cancer have emerged as the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, largely driven by sedentary habits, poor diet, chronic stress, and environmental factors. These conditions, every so often, progress soundlessly over time, manifesting symptoms at the advanced stages only when irretrievable mutilation has occurred. Thus, the early prediction and detection of lifestyle diseases have become critical to implement sensible interventions, decrease disease burden, and improve health outcomes. Biomarker examination from blood samples dominates as the fundamental scheme for evaluating health status. However, this approach is restricted by the repeated clinic visits and invasive sample collection. Recent advances in wearable and implantable biosensors put forward the possibility of continuous and remote monitoring of vital biological markers from non-invasive sources such as sweat, saliva, interstitial fluid, breath condensate, and tears. Due to the alterations in the secretion pathways and molecular compositions, each biofluid mirrors diverse aspects of physiological status. Despite momentous technological leaps, existing biosensing platforms often suffer from limited sensitivity, multiplexing inabilities, a lack of sufficient flexibility, and unstable performance. The proposed research targets the development of a non-invasive, continuous, and real-time monitoring system for critical biomarkers in human sweat. This project aims to bridge the aforementioned critical gaps by engineering hierarchical nanomaterials and functional inks for the fabrication of flexible, skin-interfaced electrochemical sensors. Also, these technologies will support the collection of long-term physiological data using biochemical sensors that can detect a range of molecular targets with remarkable sensitivity and sufficient stability. Sweat comprises rich sources of detectable substances, such as electrolytes, metabolites, drug molecules, and even minor levels of proteins. Also, it can monitor the biomolecules continuously with lacking the risk of infection by the blood-borne pathogens and the pain associated with the blood sampling. Thus, in the present research work on wearable sweat sensors the focus is on small molecules such as metabolites (glucose, and lactate), ions (sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, and calcium) and the stress hormone, cortisol. Monitoring these key biomarkers especially through such non-invasive and real-time sensing platforms can enable proactive healthcare, personalized treatment policies, and lowering healthcare costs. Integrating these early diagnostic technologies into routine health monitoring, along with the incorporation of AI, can transform current health management into a preventive and predictive approach, which is an essential step in combating the global rise of lifestyle diseases.