U-M Weil Institute, College of Engineering & Michigan Medicine Awarded $5.7M Grant for Wearable Sensor that Detects Diseases through Body Odor
The device could bring powerful monitoring and detection capabilities from the hospital to the point-of-care, home and workplace.
Contact:
Kate Murphy, Marketing Communications Specialist, Weil Institute
mukately@umich.edu
(734) 647-4751
ANN ARBOR, MI – Researchers from the University of Michigan’s Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation, College of Engineering and Michigan Medicine have received a $5.7 million grant from the NIH Screening for Conditions by Electronic Nose Technology (SCENT) program to develop a portable sensor that uses body odor to detect over 20 acute and chronic, inflammatory, metabolic, respiratory, cardiovascular and skin diseases in both adults and children.
Xudong (Sherman) Fan, PhD, U-M Richard A. Auhll Professor of Biomedical Engineering and an Associate Director of the Weil Institute, is leading a collaborative team of engineers, data scientists and clinicians to build a device that integrates gas chromatography (GC) technology with electronic nose (e-nose) and vital signs sensors into a wearable system capable of analyzing the unique chemical signatures found in vapors emitted from the skin.
“It has been well known since Hippocrates that many diseases have distinct odors associated with them, such as the fruity smell that accompanies diabetic ketoacidosis,” said Dr. Fan. “These odors are the result of volatile organic and inorganic chemical compounds emanating from the skin, which are reflective of the human body’s metabolic processes as well as the bacteria and viruses living within it. Analyzing these compounds could provide us with unique diagnostic clues, guide laboratory evaluation, and facilitate and expedite treatment.”
The device will also be able to detect and analyze physiological information such as heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen level, and total water loss through skin.
Currently, few technologies exist for wearable body odor analysis. Benchtop GC devices are commonly used but are too bulky and impractical to be deployed at the point-of-care. E-nose sensors, while providing a simpler and faster alternative, are susceptible to environmental changes and can suffer from strong cross-talk among their various sensing elements when they are exposed to all of the vapors that are emitted from the skin simultaneously. By combining wearable GC and graphene-based e-nose technologies developed at the University of Michigan with advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, the project team aims to surpass the limitations of current body odor analysis methods and greatly enhance their device’s pattern recognition and disease detection capabilities.
Benchtop gas chromatography devices (pictured above) are commonly used for odor analysis but are bulky and impractical to deploy at the point-of-care. Image credit: Shutterstock
The team plans to tackle an array of clinical conditions in both adults and children ranging from critical illnesses like sepsis, stroke, congestive heart failure, GI bleeding, and diabetic ketoacidosis to skin diseases (such as psoriasis) and pulmonary diseases (such as asthma and COPD). The noninvasive and wearable nature of the device could have significant impact especially in the acute care space, where rising admission rates are leading to overcrowding and, subsequently, worsening outcomes.
“Undifferentiated critical illness is challenging and requires rapid diagnostic workup and monitoring in order to tailor and titrate lifesaving therapies,” said Kyle Gunnerson, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology, and Internal Medicine, as well as a Weil Institute member and the lead PI for the project’s Acute Care and Diseases focus area. Dr. Gunnerson is also the Emergency Critical Care Division Chief and oversees Michigan Medicine’s emergency department-based ICU, the Emergency Critical Care Center (EC3). “There is a direct relationship of increased mortality and the time a patient waits in the ED for an available ICU bed. Noninvasive wearable monitoring devices such as this could provide timely information needed to help identify, manage, and monitor many instances of acute critical illness and injury earlier than what is currently available.”
“Because people will simply wear the small device, it can also be used in a variety of settings outside of the hospital, such as homes and workplaces,” said Fan.
Working With Weil
Throughout its lifespan, Fan and team’s SCENT project has leveraged the wealth of resources and expertise at the Weil Institute, starting with Weil’s Proposal Development unit (PDU).
"Noninvasive wearable monitoring devices such as this could provide timely information needed to help identify, manage, and monitor many instances of acute critical illness and injury earlier than what is currently available."
Kyle Gunnerson, MD
Professor, Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine
Division Chief, Emergency Critical Care
Director, Emergency Critical Care Center (EC3)
The PDU has built a unique, flexible framework to help Institute members and teams collaboratively develop compelling critical care grants from the initial intake meeting to the final submission. For Dr. Fan and team’s project, the PDU found and assessed the original funding opportunity; assisted with early strategizing, team development and coordination, and overall writing and planning; drafted supporting documents; and reviewed and edited all proposal files. The PDU also connected the team to the two Weil research cores that will continue to empower the project—the Data Science team and the Clinical Research unit (CRU).
Weil’s Data Science core led by Sardar Ansari, PhD, Assistant Research Professor of Emergency Medicine, is developing, validating and fine-tuning the algorithms that will enable the wearable sensor to appropriately identify patients with the targeted diseases and conditions. Dr. Fan’s team is also utilizing the unit’s own Big Data Platform, which passively collects data from a variety of sources across the U-M Hospital, including the electronic health record as well as administrative databases.
The Weil CRU, which works with over 600 patients a year, is responsible for screening and recruiting eligible participants for the sensor study, applying and troubleshooting the devices, handling sample collection, determining feasibility of the study, and networking within U-M Health to promote smooth patient-admitted recruitment. The Clinical Research team is also responsible for maintaining the project’s institutional review board (IRB) application and continuously communicates with the engineering team and PI’s to run samples and provide progress updates.
“A project like this truly exemplifies how the Weil Institute empowers researchers though team science to transform novel concepts into impactful solutions through innovation and integration,” said Kevin Ward, MD, Weil Institute Executive Director and U-M Professor of Emergency Medicine and Biomedical Engineering.
Project team:
Xudong (Sherman) Fan, PhD (PI, Biomedical Engineering, Weil Institute Associate Director); Zhaohui Zhong, PhD (Co-I, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science); Johann E. Gudjonsson, MD, PhD (Co-PI, Dermatology); Kyle Gunnerson, MD (Co-PI, Emergency Medicine, Weil Institute Member); Yvonne Huang, MD (Co-PI, Internal Medicine / Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine); Prashant Mahajan, MD, MPH, MBA (Co-PI, Emergency Medicine, Weil Institute Member); Sardar Ansari, PhD (Co-I, Emergency Medicine, Weil Institute Data Science Lead); and Rodney Daniels, MD (Co-I, Pediatrics, Weil Institute Associate Director), all from the University of Michigan and Michigan Medicine.
Disclosures
The team has two patents that will be utilized in this project:
Disclosure #6549 (Fan et al.) is currently under negotiations for commercialization agreements with three companies in which Dr. Fan has financial interests: Blue Biotech, Inc., Nanova Environmental, Inc., and ChromX Health Co. Ltd. The University of Michigan also has a financial interest in ChromXHealth Co. Ltd.
Disclosure #2022-033 (Fan and Zhong – Co-I). Patent filed
About the Weil Institute, formerly MCIRCC
The team at the Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation (formerly the Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care) is dedicated to pushing the leading edge of research to develop new technologies and novel therapies for the most critically ill and injured patients. Through a unique formula of innovation, integration and entrepreneurship that was first imagined by Weil, their multi-disciplinary teams of health providers, basic scientists, engineers, data scientists, commercialization coaches, donors and industry partners are taking a boundless approach to re-imagining every aspect of critical care medicine. For more information, visit weilinstitute.med.umich.edu.