Sweat equity

Razieh Salahandish Horst Herget

Feeling sweaty and wanting to take a shower after a workout or a long run? Not so fast! That sweat may hold untapped secrets to your health. A team of York University researchers is currently looking into the potential of sweat by designing a simple wearable device that decodes those secrets in real time.

The research team, led by Assistant Professor Razieh Salahandish of York’s Lassonde School of Engineering and Laboratory of Advanced Biotechnologies for Health Assessment (LAB-HA), is developing a wearable biosensing device that promises to revolutionize preventative health care.

The non-invasive wearable device integrates microfluidic technology and advanced sensors to offer real-time insights into various physiological states by analyzing sweat.

The project, Revolutionizing Preventive Healthcare: A Wearable Device for Continuous, Non-Invasive Health Monitoring, is backed with $150,000 in funding from the Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) Collaborate 2 Commercialize program, with an additional $150,000 provided by project contributor SynHiTech Inc., a biotech incubator. Through WearNovAi, Salahandish and team are aiming to take the technology from the lab to the market in the next couple of years.

Over the next two years, researchers will work to develop, test and bring this cutting-edge technology to market, offering the potential for early disease detection and timely intervention.

“Traditional medical assessments often require invasive procedures like blood draws and laboratory analysis, where our wearable biosensing device will offer a convenient, userfriendly alternative for ongoing health monitoring,” says Salahandish.

“This innovative approach to preventative health care empowers individuals to take charge of their health and has potential for wide adoption across the health-care sector.”

By continuously collecting and analyzing sweat samples, the device can detect subtle physiological changes associated with disease progression, providing early indications of potential health issues before symptoms appear, she explains.

“This makes it a valuable tool for individuals at higher risk of developing chronic conditions or those who wish to proactively monitor their health,” she says.

One of the distinct features of this device is its use of advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to recognize specific patterns in the collected data providing actionable insights tailored to each user. This personalized approach could offer individuals the opportunity to monitor their own health alongside their health-care providers.

 Salahandish says the device combines comfort, accessibility and precision, making it an ideal choice for continuous health monitoring.

“This innovative approach to preventative health care empowers individuals to take charge of their health and has potential for wide adoption across the health-care sector,” she says.