***Archived: This is a past project, it is not on offer at the moment!***
Introduction
New frontiers in personalized therapy also envisage the development of new tools for fast, easy-to-use, low cost, and continuous analysis of drugs efficacy on patients. The demand for new tools arose because even the most effective drug therapies for major diseases provide benefit only to a fraction of patients, typically in the 20 to 50% range. One of the reasons of this ineffectiveness is linked to the patient’s genetic polymorphism. For example, polymorphism in cytochrome P450 2D6 phenotype causes overdosing in “poor metabolizers” and under-dosing in “ultrafast metabolizers”, and explains why approximately 7% of hospitalized patients have serious adverse drug reactions. Some of the commonly used drugs for hypertension or anti-cancer treatments (e.g. metoprolol and tamoxifen) are metabolized by this cytochrome. Therefore, it is being increasingly recognized that any drug therapy needs to be personalized to the individual patient. A reliable point-of-care or implantable technology to monitor multiple drug compounds in patients for personalized treatments is still not available on the market.
The Master Project
A Biochip was designed in UMC 0.18 um technology, which can allow continuous monitoring of the concentration of different metabolites: a drug, the ATP and the glucose molecules into the blood. For concentration measurement was chosen a sensor controlled by a three-electrode potentiostat for chrono-amperometric analysis. The potentiostat was chosen in grounded working electrode configuration while the current is read from the counter electrode. The circuit was simulated in Cadence Virtuoso considering a model of the electrochemical cell based on RC network. This model can be improved by using Verilog AMS and creating a more accurate model of the cell, especially in the case of cyclic voltammetry studies.
Tasks:
- Designing a novel CMOS architecture for multiplexing multi-molecular detection
- Designing a novel CMOS architecture for multiplexing T and pH measurements
- Designing a CMOS architecture for smart and precise current measurements
- Implementing the designed architectures in CADENCE - Simulating the performances of the designed architectures
Requirements:
- Basic knowledge on sensors
- Basic Knowledge on CMOS design
- Experience with simulation ambient CADENCE
- Interest in diagnostics for personalized therapy
This project was supervised by Dr. Sandro Carrara.
***Archived: This is a past project, it is not on offer at the moment!***