Hong Kong creates coin-sized wearable biosensing platform

A team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) Faculty of Engineering has developed a coin-sized system that can read weak electrochemical signals, which can be used for personalised health monitoring and measurement of such conditions as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mental health. The PERfECT System – an acronym for Personalised Electronic Reader for Electrochemical Transistors, is the world’s smallest system of its kind, measuring 1.5 cm x 1.5 cm x 0.2 cm and weighing only 0.4 gram. It is easily wearable, for instance integrated with a smartwatch or as a patch, to allow for continuous monitoring of biosignals such as glucose levels and antibody concentrations in blood and even sweat. The PERfECT wearable system can also serve as a miniaturised electrochemical station for wearable devices and measure the outputs of other kinds of low-voltage transistors, such as electrolyte-gated field effect transistors and high-k dielectric-gated thin-film transistors.