Isidro Badillo-Ramírez

Project title: EPILSENS: Point-of-need sensing platform for therapeutic drug monitoring of antiepileptic drugs with integrated sample pretreatment

Host Institution: Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Host Supervisor: Prof. Anja Boisen

Co-host Institution: Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)

Co-host Supervisor: Prof. Menno W.J. Prins

Summary project: Epilepsy is a very most common serious brain disorder, affecting more than 50 million people worldwide. It is a chronic condition that often lasts for years and many patients require long-term therapy. Epilepsy can be treated effectively with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is defined as the measurement of drug concentrations in clinical samples such as serum, plasma or saliva, with the aim to manage the therapy procedure and adjust the individual drug dosage.

EPILSENS is an interdisciplinary project designed for the development and implementation of a microfluidic Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)-based sensing plat form coupled with microdialysis for sample pretreatment for on-site TDM of AEDs in complex biological samples. This project comprises a collaboration between DTU and TU/e. We aim to develop robust assays and methodologies for label-free detection and quantification of extensive AEDs used in clinics with nanostructured SERS substrates. The portable and easy-to-use device is aimed to provide a benefit over the commonly used assays and detection methods used in clinics by reducing the volume of the sample for analysis, decreasing the sample treatment steps and speeding up the analysis in a cost-effective way. This project is the first to apply SERS and microdialysis based technologies approach to develop a tool which can significantly improve the TDM of AEDs. EPILSENS will stimulate development of new methodologies in EU research that will make the implementation of TDM more efficient, and that will have the potential to impact the health care globally.