Devices with reduced microfluidic volume between sensors and sweat glands

Inventors

Ortiz, Mark S. • Stewart, Kyle N. • Roth, Robert • Heikenfeld, Jason Charles

Abstract

A sweat sampling and sensing device for sensing sweat on skin includes an analyte-specific sensor for sensing a first analyte in sweat; a sweat collector placed on or adjacent to skin with a plurality of pores or pathways for entry of sweat from skin into said sweat collector, said sweat collector at least partly defining a sweat volume between said analyte-specific sensor and the skin; and a pressure element capable of holding said sweat collector against the skin with a pressure and reducing the sweat volume between said sweat collector and the skin.

Core Innovation

A sweat sampling and sensing device is provided that includes an analyte-specific sensor for sensing a first analyte in sweat, a sweat collector placed on or adjacent to the skin with one or more pores or pathways for entry of sweat from the skin into the sweat collector, the sweat collector at least partly defining a sweat volume between the analyte-specific sensor and the skin, and a pressure element capable of holding the sweat collector against the skin with a pressure and reducing the sweat volume between the sweat collector and the skin. Embodiments of the disclosed invention provide a sweat sensing device capable of reduced volume between the sensors and sweat glands, which decreases the sampling interval. Any suitable sensor may be used in the disclosed invention and aspects apply to forms including patches, bands, straps, portions of clothing, wearables, or any suitable mechanism that reliably brings sweat stimulating, sweat collecting, and/or sweat sensing technology into intimate proximity with sweat as it is generated.

The background describes that conventional sweat sensing relies on sweat stimulation, collection, transport to a lab, and bench-top analysis, which is crude, slow, inconvenient, and costly and has limited adoption beyond infant chloride assays and illicit drug monitoring patches. The patent states that the state of the art is in need of additional devices and methods to properly reduce the volume between sensors and skin because reducing sweat volume is critical for fast sampling times, sampling during intervals with very low sweat rates, for prolonged stimulation where less stimulation is required, and for improving biomarker measurements where a low sweat rate is required to ensure correlation between biomarker concentrations in sweat and those in blood.

Claims Coverage

The independent claim (one independent claim) recites three main inventive features related to sensing, a sweat collector with pores/pathways defining a sweat volume, and a pressure element with specific adhesive contact area and pressure range.

The independent claim covers a combination of an analyte-specific sensor, a sweat collector with pores or pathways that defines a sweat volume between sensor and skin, and a pressure element that holds the collector against skin with an adhesive contact area at least three times the collector contact area and a pressure in the specified range.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications