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Sensor100
January 2016
Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed
in situ perspiration analysis
A group of engineers at the University of
California, Berkeley and collaborators have
reported in Nature that they have devel-
oped a sweat band which incorporates
sensors for sodium and potassium ions,
glucose and lactate, as well as skin tem-
perature. The sensor array is fully flexible
and bridges the technological gap between
signal transduction, conditioning (amplifica-
tion and filtering), processing and wireless
transmission in wearable biosensors by
merging plastic-based sensors that inter-
face with the skin with silicon integrated
circuits consolidated on a flexible circuit
board for complex signal processing.
Nature Letters27 January - see also
Berkeley News27 January
Illumina Forms New Company to Enable Early Cancer
Detection via Blood-Based Screening
San Diego based
Illumina, Inc.
has announced GRAIL, a new company formed to en-
able cancer screening from a simple blood test. Powered by Illumina sequencing tech-
nology, GRAIL will develop a pan-cancer screening test by directly measuring circulat-
ing nucleic acids in blood.
Detecting cancer at the earliest stages dramatically increases long-term survival, hence
the successful development of a pan-cancer screening test for asymptomatic individu-
als would make the first major dent in global cancer mortality. Ultra-deep sequencing
to detect circulating tumor DNA has the potential to be the holy grail for early cancer
detection in asymptomatic individuals. Most tumors shed nucleic acids into the blood.
Circulating tumor DNA is a direct measurement of cancer DNA, rather than an indi-
rect measure of the effects of cancer.
www.grailbio.comThe new sensor developed at UC
Berkeley can be made into “smart”
wristbands or headbands that pro-
vide continuous, real-time analysis of
the chemicals in sweat. (UC Berkeley
photo byWei Gao)