LabCom for the Development of Connected Medical Devices (Sensors) – MED-SENSE

The BiOSS team, ITODYS laboratory, UMR 7086, U.Paris Cité and CNRS, has been collaborating since 2016 with the company ValoTec for the development of medical devices (MD): biochemical sensors to monitor a biomarker, and physical sensors (pressure, pH , temperature, humidity), to which are added MEMS sensors for actimetry, so as to associate the biochemical state with the patient's activity.
ValoTec has a commercial activity in the field of service and prototyping; more particularly, it masters the electronic, software, data transmission and regulatory aspects of medical devices. The BiOSS team masters the chemistry of materials, surface functionalizations, several 2D printing technologies, and the scientific and practical aspects of biochemical, chemical and physical sensors. This complementary, combined know-how makes it possible to develop systems up to high TRLs (6 and more) capable of attracting start-ups, ETIs or large industrial groups.
The main scientific issue of the LabCom concerns surface functionalization by printing. Printing makes it possible to locate a layer on a substrate and to induce a local physico-chemical property (e.g. hydrophilic/hydrophobic character for fluidic channels), an optical property (e.g. chromophores), a biochemical reactivity (enzymes, nanozymes, antibodies , nanobodies, CRISPR/Cas…). This surface functionalization must be multi-scale: screen printing for objects requiring large thicknesses (200 um resolution, thickness > 10 um, e.g. fluidic channels or conductive tracks), inkjet (50-100 um resolution, 1-10 nm thickness, for local functionalization), capillary nanoprinting (resolution 50 nm, thickness 1-10 nm, for the most resolved active functions, e.g. resistors, transistors, MEMS). These processes allow the realization of complex devices on flexible, conformable, extensible, compressible substrates... applicable for example on the skin for the monitoring of physiological parameters such as the pH of the exudate of a wound, the pressure that a patient exerts on a part of his body, his stress, the analysis of a movement, the humidity of a bandage, the presence of a bacterial contaminant... Thin and conformable, these devices can be placed on all types of surfaces and objects, including pre-existing MDs (masks for sleep apnea, prostheses, monitoring in functional rehabilitation, etc.) in the form of a "patch" that very easily add one or more functions to a pre-existing object without it having to be redesigned and reindustrialized.
The BiOSS team masters these concepts, manufactures physical and (bio)chemical sensors from centimetric to nanometric and develops its functionalization processes with state-of-the-art equipment; but connecting them, interfacing them with portable electronics, testing them in situ and designing them with regard to MD regulations escapes him, whereas this is ValoTec's business.
The innovation objectives relate to the sensor-electronics-software integration chain, with a focus on alternative methods of small and medium-scale production that do not require the investments and energy consumption of conventional microfabrication, additive rather than subtractive. therefore less greedy in raw materials. The coupling of several sensors of different natures will also allow the fusion of data and the contextualization of measurements which, taken alone, have a limited medical significance.
BiOSS – ValoTec interactions are envisaged over a minimum of 10 years, through the strengthening of the dedicated and co-located team of engineers and researchers and an initial focus on connected dressings, skin patches and patches added to existing MDs.