Making better sense of our health

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Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Emre Ertin works with graduate students Ju Gao and Siddharth Baskar to apply the novel biosensors he developed in a new study that aims to reduce hospital readmissions among congestive heart failure patients
(from right) Professor Emre Ertin works with graduate students Ju Gao and Siddharth Baskar to apply the novel biosensors he developed to a new study that aims to reduce hospital readmissions among congestive heart failure patients and prevent relapse among people who have quit smoking.
Novel biosensors developed by Emre Ertin could one day improve how clinicians monitor and treat a wide variety of complex diseases from congestive heart failure to substance abuse. 

The research associate professor of electrical and computer engineering designs long-life, wearable biosensors that can detect physical activity, stress levels, breathing patterns, and heart and lung function. 

“These sensors can easily blend into your daily life routine,” Ertin said, “and therefore have the potential to dramatically expand the scale of physiological data we can obtain in the field while minimizing the burden to participants.”

The ability to monitor multiple aspects of a person’s life could give researchers unique insight into a patient’s health status, but it will also generate an enormous amount of data quickly. Data that will need to be analyzed and transformed into useable information.

The Ohio State University is one of 11 institutions working to develop tools that make it easier to gather, analyze and interpret data generated by health sensors as part of a new $10.8 million National Center of Excellence for Mobile Sensor Data-to-Knowledge (MD2K), funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Three of Ertin’s biosensors will play a prominent role in the center’s work to apply new technologies to reduce hospital readmissions among congestive heart failure patients and prevent relapse among people who have quit smoking. 

One of his most promising new sensors—developed with National Science Foundation grant funding—uses ultrawideband radar technology to detect fluid levels in the lungs, breathing patterns and cardiac motion. While still in the initial testing stage, if successful, the sensor could ultimately be a game-changing tool for monitoring congestive heart failure.

Through the combined use of sensors, a camera and a phone, MD2K scientists plan to measure physical, biological, behavioral, social and environmental factors that contribute to health and disease risk. 

“The idea is to surround people with sensors so that you get a complete picture of their life,” Ertin said.

By tracking a distinct respiration pattern plus a specific wrist motion, for example, the sensors would show the first time a former smoker relapsed, Ertin explained. Correlating specific events with other sensed data, such as GPS, will provide context about what a patient was doing and where they were during or just prior to a specific incident.

Ertin and other signal processing experts will convert the data into a list of clinically relevant, actionable information. Ultimately, the scientists hope to develop open-source computing systems to crunch the data and software that can deliver useful information to health care practitioners.

Two other Ohio State investigators and one alumnus are also contributing their expertise to MD2K. William Abraham, director of cardiovascular medicine at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, will lead clinical studies of technologies developed for heart failure care. Clay Marsh, chief innovation officer for Wexner Medical Center and professor of internal medicine, will direct the pursuit of health care innovations enabled by the center’s initial work. Santosh Kumar, a computer scientist at the University of Memphis and an Ohio State alumnus (MS ’02, PhD ’06), will direct the center.

Many of the sensors used in the MD2K research date back to an earlier project to build mobile sensors for field studies, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) as part of the Genes Environment and Health Initiative. During that project, Ertin helped develop a suite of sensors that were integrated into AutoSense, a wearable wireless sensor system now used by NIDA and various universities to study the causes of substance abuse relapse.

“We built sensors that are lightweight, have a long battery life, but provide vital signal data like EKG, respiration and temperature,” he said. 

Having a research lab outfitted with 3-D and material deposition printers, surface mount electronics, and state-of-the-art radiofrequency equipment enables his team to create sensor prototypes quickly, Ertin said. He also credits resources and funding from the state of Ohio, Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Army Research Office for accelerating his lab’s research.

“Having this equipment really shortens our invention cycles. We can actually build a concept and different variations all at the same time, enabling the best idea to appear,” he said. 

Knowing how his work can directly benefit others and seeing the excitement his sensors generate in colleagues is all the motivation Ertin needs to keep pushing the boundaries of mobile sensor technology.

“The researchers we work with really care about these diseases and they are thrilled with the new opportunities created by our sensors to capture data from the field,” he said. "Their excitement is infectious."

Written by Candi Clevenger, College of Engineering Communications, clevenger.87@osu.edu 

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