Neonatal jaundice is a medical condition which occurs in newborns as a result of an imbalance between the production and elimination of bilirubin. Excess bilirubin in the blood stream diffuses into the surrounding tissue leading to a yellowing of the skin. An optical system integrated with a signal processing system is used as a platform to noninvasively quantify bilirubin concentration through the measurement of diffuse skin reflectance. Initial studies, based on simulated skin reflectance spectra have lead to the generation of a clinical model for neonatal jaundice which, generates spectral reflectance data for jaundiced skin with varying levels of bilirubin concentration in the tissue. The spectral database built using the jaundice clinical model is then used as a test database to validate the signal processing system in real time. This evaluation forms the basis for understanding the translation of this research to human trials. The new jaundice clinical model and signal processing system have been successful validated using a porcine model as a surrogate for neonatal skin tissue. Samples of pig skin were soaked in bilirubin solutions of varying concentrations to simulate jaundice skin conditions. The resulting skins samples were analyzed with our skin reflectance systems producing bilirubin concentration values that show a high correlation (R(2) = 0.96) to concentration of the bilirubin solution that each porcine tissue sample was soaked in‥

Neonatal jaundice is a medical condition which occurs in newborns as a result of an imbalance between the production and elimination of bilirubin. Excess bilirubin in the blood stream diffuses into the surrounding tissue leading to a yellowing of the skin. The extra-vascular bilirubin act as interfering signal that limits the estimation of serum bilirubin from reflectance spectrum of human skin. This is particularly an issue for neonates who are being subjected to phototherapy (a common treatment for neonatal jaundice). Unfortunately, analytical models developed to study the light transport in human skin do not consider the effects of extra-vascular bilirubin (and other absorbing chromophores). A biomedical signal processing method that estimates serum bilirubin in presence of confounding signals such as melanin and extra-vascular bilirubin concentrations is presented. The new system model and nonlinear solver have been successful in estimating the serum bilirubin concentration on simulated spectral databases within an average error of 15%.

A Nanoporous glass matrix is developed to encapsulate molecular probes for monitoring important biological parameters such as DO. The hydrophobic nanoporous host matrix is designed and fabricated using room temperature sol gel technique. The doped sol gel is then coated on biocompatible self adhesive patches or directly coated on the biocontainers. We demonstrate the application of this technique in non-invasive monitoring DO as well as oxygen partial pressure in a closed fermentation process as well as in a cell culture plate during bacterial growth. Dynamic response of sensor, sensitivity and accuracy is also demonstrated in this paper.

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