Continuous monitoring of human biomarkers for real-time health monitoring
The Mission
The future of health will require radical new
techniques and approaches to bring forward
the required improvement in accuracy and
timeliness of monitoring and diagnostics of
patients. There is a growing scientific,
commercial and societal interest in using light
for carrying out such monitoring functions
alleviating the need of invasive methods such
a micro-needles.
The use of light offers the ability to perform
spectral measurement and to detect subtle
small changes/quantities in different bodily
fluids.
The ECO group in the TU/e is partnering with a Swiss med-tech start-up company Spiden AG, to
leverage their proprietary spectroscopy methods by exploiting the knowhow in laser modulation and
signal processing at the ECO group.
The MSc graduation task
The MSc graduation task will be to investigate the use of laser modulation and their electronic drive,
in combination with advanced signal post-processing to extract valuable health markers and establish
feasibility for the detection of various biomarkers and compounds in different body fluids. The work
will be carried mostly in TU/e ECO labs but will include a period on site in Switzerland1
, to compare
the developed lasing drive schemes with state-of-the-art bench-top laser systems. The student will
be supported from the TU/e by staff members (Dr. Chigp Okonkwo and Dr. Oded Raz) as well as get
guidance from the start-up company (Dr. Jens Hofrichter, Dr. Jean-Christophe Blancon). We expect
that by the end of the project, the student will be able to report on the feasibility of using modulated
laser light (with carefully designed modulation signal) with robust signal processing algorithms to
detect desired analytes in human fluids. It is further expected that the student will be able to
evaluate the attractiveness of obtained solution in terms of its scalability and cost effectiveness to
assess its market potential (in collaboration with Spiden’s Strategy & Operations team). A truly
unique opportunity for a student to gain experience from scientific research to commercial impact.
The candidate
• Basic understanding of electronic modulation techniques
• Basic understanding of laser physics and optics
• Programming skills in Matlab and/or FPGA based platforms
• Enthusiasm to push the frontiers of research by using light for medical diagnostics and healthcare
Apply now!
• Dr. Oded Raz o.raz@tue.nl
• Dr. Chigo Okonkwo cokonkwo@tue.nl