1. PERSONAL METABOLOME MACHINE FOR
PRECISION HEALTHCARE
Boon Chong Cheah, Alasdair I. MacDonald, Christopher Martin, Srinivas Velugotla, Mohammed Al-Rawhani, Michael P. Barrett and David R. S. Cumming
Metabolites are the tiny molecules of life. Healthy
metabolite levels are important to our wellbeing and the
ensemble of these molecules makes up the metabolome. In
the same way that pioneering research in sequencing
technologies unravelled the personal genome, we are now
working on technology that will give everyone near instant
access to their own metabolome. This technology has the
potential to revolutionise diagnostics and the delivery of
precision healthcare for all.
The world of electronics is dominated by low cost, mass-manufactured CMOS
technology. CMOS has made modern computing and communications possible and
has made an enormous impact on sensing technology such as the digital camera.
This technology has also been successfully implemented into a next generation
sequencing system – a personal genome machine and commercialised in the Ion
TorrentTM, the world’s first optics-free sequencing system.
Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) Technology
Figure 1 The vision of the personal metabolome machine.
Personal Metabolome Machine
Diagnostics clinical chemistry often
exploits specific enzymes to quantify
metabolites. Together with CMOS,
we can create enzyme-based sensing
assays for the metabolome using ion
sensitive device or optical
technologies.
Figure 4 (A) A packaged
CMOS chip with
microfluidics. (B) Optical
image of the CMOS chip with
an enlarged image of the
pixel containing both ionic
and optical devices. (C) The
microfluidics channels. (D)
The experimental setup.
How It Works Our device and instrumentation
Using CMOS, we could make
integrated and miniaturised
metabolomic sensing devices.
Together with microfluidics and
state-of-the-art 2D inkjet printing,
multiple enzyme-based metabolic
sensing could lead to the
personal metabolome machine.
Figure 5 shows glucose
quantification for diabetes
mellitus monitoring and also
enzyme kinetics assay capability.
Conclusion
Figure 3 Enzyme-based sensing assay for
metabolites using (A) optical technologies and (B)
ion sensitive device.
(A)
(B)
(A)
(D)
(B)
CMOS Chip
Figure 5 (A) A typical graph that is obtained from the CMOS chip for glucose measurement. (B) Enzyme kinetics
assay obtained using our device that before now required large and expensive bench top laboratory equipment.
(C)
Figure 2 Personal genome machine.
(A) (B)
This revolutionary research aim to develop novel arrays of sensor technology on CMOS platforms to create a metabolomic
sensing device. So far we have shown that the miniaturised technology that we are creating has the ability to replicate enzyme
kinetics assays that before now required large and expensive bench-top laboratory equipment. Our pioneering research seeks to
develop the world's first handheld diagnostics healthcare system, placing the UK at the forefront of this exciting technology.