Research

Skin-interfaced wearable systems with integrated colorimetric assays, microfluidic channels, and electrochemical sensors offer powerful capabilities for noninvasive, real-time sweat analysis. This Perspective details recent progress in the development and translation of novel wearable sensors for personalized assessment of sweat dynamics and biomarkers, with precise sampling and real-time analysis.

Wireless, skin-interfaced electronic and microfluidic devices have the potential to replace wired, bulky, and cumbersome technologies for personal and clinical health monitoring, allowing care to extend from hospital settings to the home.

Skin-interfaced microfluidic systems help assess health status and chemical exposure. Eccrine sweat glands in the skin are key components of an ingenious system for evaporative cooling. Their action is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system in an adaptive, closed-loop manner to help maintain thermal homeostasis during physical or mental exertion or exposure to high temperatures.

The Gx Sweat Patch is a wearable microfluidic sweat sensor that can be worn by athletes to monitor their sweating rate and sweat chloride concentration. Here, we highlight the commercialization of the Gx Sweat Patch, from developing and optimizing prototypes of a wearable sweat-sensing platform, to validation in competitive individual and team-sport athletes, and the challenges of commercial launch.

Advanced capabilities in noninvasive, in situ monitoring of parameters related to sweat serve as the basis for obtaining real-time insights into human physiological state, health, and performance. Although recently reported classes of soft, skin-interfaced microfluidic systems support powerful functions in this context, most are designed as single-use disposables.

Dehydration has many deleterious effects on cognitive and physical performance as well as physiological function, in the context of sports, industrial work, clinical rehabilitation, and military applications.