Noninvasive wearable electroactive pharmaceutical monitoring for personalized therapeutics

Abstract

To achieve the mission of personalized medicine, centering on delivering the right drug to the right patient at the right dose, therapeutic drug monitoring solutions are necessary. In that regard, wearable biosensing technologies, capable of tracking drug pharmacokinetics in noninvasively retrievable biofluids (e.g., sweat), play a critical role, because they can be deployed at a large scale to monitor the individuals’ drug transcourse profiles (semi)continuously and longitudinally. To this end, voltammetry-based sensing modalities are suitable, as in principle they can detect and quantify electroactive drugs on the basis of the target’s redox signature. However, the target’s redox signature in complex biofluid matrices can be confounded by the immediate biofouling effects and distorted/buried by the interfering voltammetric responses of endogenous electroactive species. Here, we devise a wearable voltammetric sensor development strategy—centering on engineering the molecule–surface interactions—to simultaneously mitigate biofouling and create an “undistorted potential window” within which the target drug’s voltammetric response is dominant and interference is eliminated. To inform its clinical utility, our strategy was adopted to track the temporal profile of circulating acetaminophen (a widely used analgesic and antipyretic) in saliva and sweat, using a surface-modified boron-doped diamond sensing interface (cross-validated with laboratory-based assays, R2 ∼ 0.94). Through integration of the engineered sensing interface within a custom-developed smartwatch, and augmentation with a dedicated analytical framework (for redox peak extraction), we realized a wearable solution to seamlessly render drug readouts with minute-level temporal resolution. Leveraging this solution, we demonstrated the pharmacokinetic correlation and significance of sweat readings.

SLIDE—Novel Approach to Apocrine Sweat Sampling for Lipid Profiling in Healthy Individuals

“…Sweat is also often attributed to the function of removing metabolic wastes through perspiration, but so far, this function seems to be relatively negligible and mostly reserved for the kidneys [ 9 ]. However, it appears that various exogenous substances and toxins such as pharmaceuticals [ 10 ], drugs [ 11 ], toxic metals [ 12 ] or other organic substances [ 13 ] are transferred into a sweat (and the concentrations in sweat are often higher than that of blood and/or urine), which could be used for monitoring or screening purposes.…”

Wearable electrochemical biosensors in North America

“…Wearable DPV-based non-enzymatic sensors were described for the sweat monitoring of methylxanthine drugs (such as caffeine) (Fig. 4bi) (Tai et al, 2018) and analgesic drugs (acetaminophen) (Lin et al, 2020). Further, a forensic glove was developed for SWV detection of the opioid drug fentanyl (Barfidokht et al, 2019) (Fig.…”

Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Therapeutic Electrical Stimulation

“…This sensing information can be invaluable for patients with chronic conditions as this information is vital in knowing the nature and progress of their debilitating conditions, as well as providing potential solutions to treatment courses. [ 296 ] In recent years TENG technology has been applied in rehabilitative capacities, mostly for applications in muscle rehabilitation, as well as cardiac rehabilitation, which are detailed below.…”