Enabling Continuous Molecular Monitoring in the Body via Implantable and Wearable Electrochemical Aptamer-based Sensors

Description:
The ability to continuously monitor fluctuating concentrations of specific molecules in the body can drastically improve precision medicine by allowing the real-time correlation of dynamic molecular processes with health and disease. While this ability has been pursued from multiple directions, electrochemical strategies have been successful and commercializable platforms. For example, continuous glucose monitors have dramatically improved the therapeutic management and quality of life for Type 1 diabetics. Unfortunately, the enzymatic sensing used in glucose monitors is not applicable to a large number of clinically relevant biomarkers. This limitation significantly reduces the scope of dynamic biochemical processes we can probe to study healthy human physiology and disease. In response, my laboratory is developing in vivo electrochemical aptamer-based sensors, a platform that is generalizable to the highly specific sensing of arbitrary molecular targets and supports continuous molecular monitoring in the body. In this presentation I will discuss the current state-of-the-art of these sensors, and the challenges we are addressing to enable preclinical and clinical applications.

Speaker: Netz Arroyo - Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Netz Arroyo is an Assistant Professor in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from The University of Texas at Austin under electrochemist Allen J. Bard and was a postdoctoral fellow at University of California Santa Barbara under biophysicist Kevin W. Plaxco. As Assistant Professor, he leads a multidisciplinary research group of four graduate students and two postdoctoral fellows focused on the development of biosensing technologies for real-time molecular monitoring in biological systems. Research in the Arroyo lab aims to expand our understanding therapeutic transport across biological barriers, develop new diagnostic and drug delivery approaches, and expand therapeutic drug monitoring capabilities via wearable devices. He enjoys running, playing in the backyard with his baby girl Emma, and making new friends and professional connections.