# Laser-Engraved Wearable Sweat Sensors to Detect and Monitor Cardiometabolic Disease

> **NIH NIH R01** · CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2023 · $398,730

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Metabolic syndrome is on the rise as the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting more than a third
of all U.S. adults. If untreated, patients who develop type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) are at high-risk for major
adverse cardiovascular events, including stroke, myocardial infarction, and cardiovascular related deaths.
Despite chronic screening and monitoring for patient-specific prediction and prevention for cardiometabolic
disease, there remains a bottleneck to detect and monitor the metabolic risk factors underlying the rising
epidemic of obesity-associated with hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes. For these reasons,
developing wearable molecular sensors, which allow for seamless screening, monitoring, and potentially
enables timely intervention, is clinically significant to confront the rising endemic of cardiometabolic disorders.
In this project, we propose to continuously monitor a panel of key metabolic biomarkers including glucose,
uric acid, branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs: leucine, isoleucine, and valine), and insulin using an
integrated Molecular Sensing System (iMSS). We hypothesize that seamless detection of cardiometabolic
biomarkers accelerates our capacity to identify metabolic risk factors in our prediabetic patients with obesity
for early nutrition intervention to reduce health disparities in the U.S. In addition to integrating with our existing
glucose and uric acid sensors, we propose to develop novel laser-engraved wearable sensors for continuous
monitoring of BCAAs and insulin based on a novel nanobiosensing approach that combines high-throughput
laser-fabricated graphene, molecular imprinting based ‘artificial antibody’, and in situ sensor regeneration
technique. This approach will enable large-scale, low-cost fabrication of highly sensitive and selective sensors
for continuous monitoring of clinical meaningful cardiometabolic analytes in human sweat at ultralow
concentrations (such as BCAAs). The use of laser-induced microfluidics and numerical simulation-guided
design optimization enables efficient fluid sampling with minimized effects from the sensing delay and fluid
evaporation. Harnessing the power of concurrent multiplexed cardiometabolic sensing, adjusted
electrochemical measurements based on pH, electrolytes, temperature, and sweat rate calibration minimize
the systematic uncertainties persisted in the current generation of wearable sensing systems. We will validate
the correlation of the sweat/blood biomarkers in healthy subjects using the iMSS and deploy these epidermal
sensors to the high-risk patients. We envision that the iMSS system will provide an entry point to identify pre-
diabetes and obesity at risk for conversion to T2D, and will have translational significance to mitigate clinical
manifestation of major adverse cardiovascular events.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10680422
- **Project number:** 5R01HL155815-03
- **Recipient organization:** CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** Wei Gao
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $398,730
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-08-23 → 2026-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10680422

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10680422, Laser-Engraved Wearable Sweat Sensors to Detect and Monitor Cardiometabolic Disease (5R01HL155815-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10680422. Licensed CC0.

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