Event Date
Event Date
Inflammatory dermatoses, such as allergic contact dermatitis (ACD), are prevalent chronic conditions that severely impact patients’ life quality. We report the development of a wearable optical sensor for low-cost, non-invasive, remote monitoring of skin inflammation. Despite the prevalence of ACD (~20%), the diagnostic gold standard (patch testing) has been fundamentally unchanged since 1895, remaining a time-consuming and clinic-dependent method. We address these limitations by designing a low-cost wearable optical sensor to detect changes in skin optical properties that are indicative of early inflammatory responses. Skin phantoms were created to replicate the optical characteristics of human tissue across the full spectrum of Fitzpatrick skin tones. A prototype sensor was engineered to perform time-lapse optical measurements and was validated on these skin phantoms under simulated inflammatory conditions, ensuring accuracy across diverse skin types. This research lays the groundwork for future clinical studies, ultimately improving diagnostic accessibility for inflammatory skin diseases.
Presenter
Shannon Wongvibulsin
Univ. of California, Los Angeles (United States)
Shannon Wongvibulsin, MD, PhD, is a research-track dermatology resident in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program currently performing her post-doctoral research in the Ozcan lab. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Medical Scientist Training/MD-PhD Program, where she conducted research in computational medicine as part of the Hopkins Individualized Health Initiative. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Dermatology Foundation Dermatologist Investigator Research Fellowship, Skin of Color Society Early Career Innovation Award and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) F30 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, and has been recognized as a distinguished scholar through the Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Program as well as the Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.