PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT – Research Project Leader: Tyler Ray, PhD An Epidermal Microfluidic Screening Panel for Diabetic Kidney Disease Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a common, multifaceted condition affecting an estimated 451 million individuals worldwide in 2017, with Type-2 DM (T2D) comprising an estimated 90% of the patient population. T2D is associated with substantial adverse health outcomes, onset of DM-related comorbidities, and premature mortality. Clinicians have primarily relied upon self-reporting assessments from patients to evaluate adherence to prescribed treatments. This reliance on self-reported data limits therapeutic development and clinical interventions. The advent of wearable continuous glucose monitors (CGM) offers enhanced clinical insight by monitoring the relationship between changes in blood glucose levels and real-world behaviors; however, this is only a partial window. There is a critical need for improved measurement methods that will evaluate diabetes associated complications such as diabetic kidney disease (DKD) before they occur in the home or activity- relevant setting. The simultaneous real-time monitoring of other biomarkers in addition to glucose is required to provide enhanced clinical understanding and intervention for DM-related disorders. Sweat contains a wealth of biomarkers relevant to health status, including electrolytes, metabolites, organic compounds, inflammatory/stress biomarkers, proteins and hormones. The potential advantage of personalized assessment of sweat biomarkers as a noninvasive diagnostic tool for expanding clinical and therapeutic understanding of DM and DM-related disorders is profound. Unlocking the potential of sweat as a non-invasive target in precision medicine for DM-related conditions requires the ability to collect and store sweat over time without contamination from subjects and the ability to quantify various biomarkers from the collected sweat accurately and promptly in a wearable form-factor. We hypothesize that continuous electrolyte and sweat rate measurements will provide actionable information for DM-patients both during exercise and during free-living conditions. To test this hypothesis, we propose to develop a new wearable sensor through three Specific Aims. Aim 1 will test whether biometric signals relevant to DKD can be quantitatively measured in sweat via passive sampling. This effort will test if identified biochemical analytes present in ultra-low concentrations can be measured in sweat sampled passively with sufficient precision to serve as markers for DKD . Aim 2 will develop a wearable prototype platform for DKD condition monitoring. We will use the sensing requirements identified in Aim 1 to design sensors for integration into a wearable device form factor to permit sweat analysis without requiring the use of centralized laboratory facilities and expensive analytical equipment. Aim 3 will characterize sweat biomarkers as potential quantitative measures of DKD ....