From Blood to Brain to Skin: Continuous Multi-Biofluid Monitoring with Microfluidic and Microneedle Biosensors
Speaker
Mahla Poudineh
New York University (NYU)
Abstract
Timely detection of molecular analytes and biomarkers is central to disease diagnosis, therapy optimization, and treatment monitoring. However, most clinicaly relevant biomarkers reside in complex biofluids—such as whole blood, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and interstitial fluid (ISF)—and often fluctuate over minutes to hours. Capturing these dynamics requires technologies that are sensitive and specific in complex matrices, and capable of continuous, real-time measurement. In this talk, I will present a suite of complementary platforms—wearable microneedle sensing patches and microfluidic biosensors—that enable continuous biomarker interrogation across multiple body fluids and clinical settings.
At the skin, our painless polymeric microneedle patches serve as conduits into or out of tissue for minimally invasive monitoring and treatment in outpatient settings. We integrate these patches with electrochemical biosensors for real-time tracking of small molecules, metabolites, and fundamentally challenging protein biomarkers, and we have validated these sensors in animal models and recently in humans.
We also develop technologies that enable continuous, real-time tracking of biomarkers outside the body, an urgent need that cannot be met using gold-standard techniques. To do so, we leverage affinity probes in a bead-based fluorescence assay with fiber-optic readout as well as electrochemical biosensing technologies. Using these platforms, we were able to resolve the dynamics of insulin, glucagon, and C-peptide, key diabetes hormones, through disease onset and progression, continuously track critical infection indicators in neuro-ICU patients who are at risk of infection development, and monitor the status of donor lungs prior to their transplantation.
Together, these approaches provide time-resolved biochemical readouts in clinically relevant fluids, ex vivo and in situ.
About Speaker
Mahla Poudineh, an interdisciplinary engineer, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at New York University (NYU), joined the faculty in September 2026. She directs the IDEATION Lab, where the long-term objective is to combine real-time health monitoring with targeted drug delivery using functional nano/biomaterials.
Before her appointment at NYU, Poudineh was a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo from 2020 to 2026. While at Waterloo, she held a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Health Monitoring BioNano Devices and received early promotion to tenure in 2025. During a 2023-2024 sabbatical hosted by Prof. Robert Langer at MIT, she led an initiative involving MIT, Harvard, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the University of Rostock to develop a platform for continuous patient monitoring in the neurocritical ICU.
Poudineh earned her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2017. She then completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Toronto and Stanford University School of Medicine. Her research is highlighted in Nature and Science, and she holds the Johnson and Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Award and Ontario Early Research Award.