An Autonomous 3D Biofluid Management and Analysis Lab-on-the-Body Platform for Point-of-Person Biomarker Monitoring Applications

Personal biomarker sensors are poised to transform personalized medicine by providing frequent and real-time measures of biomarker molecules, thus catalyzing the transition from point-of-lab and point-of-care testing to near-continuous monitoring at the point-of-person. To realize the full range of possibilities offered by such wearable and mobile sensors, in-situ active microfluid management capabilities are fundamentally required. Previously reported non-invasive wearable and mobile biomarker sensors rely on the in-situ analysis of biofluid samples that are passively collected in absorbent pads or 2D microfluidic housings. The spatial constraints of these platforms and their lack of active control on biofluid inherently limit the efficiency, diversity and frequency of end-point assessments. Here, by devising a suite of programmable electro-fluidic interfaces, integrated within a multi-layer flexible microfluidic device, we demonstrate key biofluid management functionalities, including biofluid flow actuation and compartmentalization, for autonomous lab-on-the-body sample analysis. System-level functionality is achieved by interfacing the microfluidic device with a wireless circuit board. The desired operations are validated on-body through human subject testing. The versatility of these unprecedented lab-on-the-body methodologies enables a wide-ranging complex sample processing and analysis operations that can converge to realize point-of-person monitoring platforms