Image: Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar
Tyndall researcher Dr Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar wants to create the ‘gold standard’ clinical biomarker sensing device.
Just last month, Dr Sanathana Konugolu Venkata Sekar was awarded a €1.58m European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for pioneering research to eliminate skin-colour bias in biomarker sensors.
Sekar works at IPIC, the Research Centre for Photonics based at Tyndall National Institute in University College Cork.
“My goal with the NOBIAS project is to lay the foundation for the world’s first bias-free and accurate optical biomarker sensing device,” Sekar said at the time.
Sekar received his master’s in physics from Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning in India and his PhD in biophotonics from Politecnico di Milano in Italy.
He is a senior researcher in Tyndall and the biomedical theme coordinator at IPIC. He is also an entrepreneur, having co-founded BioPixS, a spin-off from his research. He has raised more than €3m in international and industry grants for his work.
“My vision is to translate cutting-edge photonics into miniaturised solutions for healthcare applications,” Sekar told SiliconRepublic.com.
Tell us about your current research.
I’m currently working on miniature integrated devices (wearable, chip-on-tip endoscopes, probes) and standardisation for biophotonics.
One exciting piece of research is my team’s work on technology similar to light detection and ranging (LIDARs) used in cars – time-of-flight based wearables to eliminate skin-colour bias.
It all started before the Covid-19 pandemic, where I understood that recent advancements in daylight LIDAR and its small footprint could be exploited to bring down a benchtop-based biomarker sensing technology to a wearable footprint. During the pandemic, skin-colour bias of pulse oximeters became a hot topic. When I first read about it, I thought I have the solution that could potentially eliminate colour bias. The time domain technology with some tweaks could be made insensitive to the superficial layers signal which has melanin that gives us the colour of skin. We did a number of preliminary experiments and filed two patents in this area.
We continued to carry out our research and I applied for the ERC grant based on my preliminary results, and now the rest is history!
In your opinion, why is your research important?
Colour bias in optical devices such as smartwatches and pulse oximeters affect 2.2bn people of colour. The continuous wave (CW) technology used in these devices is limited in accuracy and results are biased by skin colour and light scattering in tissue.
The scientific outcomes of my ERC project ‘NOBIAS’ lay the foundation for the world’s fastest, most accurate and bias-free sensing devices.
The availability of low-cost LIDAR technology means that the foundational tools built by NOBIAS can be translated to wide adoption in clinical and other personal care settings.
NOBIAS will be demonstrated on blood biomarkers sensing. However, the foundational approaches of NOBIAS could be extended to any non-invasive bias-free sensing applications (hydration, core temperature, glucose etc).
We hope that the transformative nature of NOBIAS will create a legacy, a new paradigm in biophotonics, and sow the seed of becoming the gold-standard reliable tool for bias-free clinical and personal biomarker sensing applications.
What inspired you to become a researcher?
As a ‘nerd’ student of science from a rural part of India I was always inspired by the life stories of great scientists from my region and beyond (Sir C V Raman, Michael Faraday). Even as a child, I always wanted to do groundbreaking research and create novel things that were never envisioned before. I created my mini lab at home with electronic and optical components taken from broken gadgets. I won numerous science exhibitions from my garage creations.
Fast forward to now, I’m here, pursuing my deep passion for science. NOBIAS will provide me with an opportunity to pursue one such area of game-changing research to investigate and eliminate colour bias, the one that I’m passionate about, research that impacts and leaves a mark beyond its origin, a breakthrough for human biomarker sensing applications. I’m very excited and deeply motivated to pursue this new concept.
What are some of the biggest challenges or misconceptions you face as a researcher in your field?
One major challenge is the lack of understanding of the complexity involved in developing biophotonics or any biomedical technology. When demonstrating a proof of concept, many might believe that building the hardware constitutes most of the solution. However, in biophotonics, creating hardware addresses maybe around 10pc or even less of the problem. The remaining involves validating the device functions effectively for the biomedical application –reliably measuring biomarkers with the required sensitivity and developing a generalised approach or algorithm that accommodates the heterogeneity seen across different populations, genders, skin tones and ethnicities. We need the right experience in the field to avoid getting distracted by seemingly important aspects of technology development that don’t contribute to the core solution. Another challenge is the multidisciplinary nature of the work, but it is exciting to collaborate across fields, bringing together engineers, clinicians and scientists to speak the same language and work towards a common goal.
A common misconception is that time-of-flight technology is expensive and niche, but with advances like LIDAR, we’re making cutting-edge technology more accessible. And yes, people often think I spend my days sitting in a lab with lasers (which, sometimes I do!), but the real focus is on revolutionising healthcare – one photon at a time!
Do you think public engagement with science and data has changed in recent years?
Public engagement with science has definitely evolved, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Growing up, my exposure to science was mostly in the school lab, tinkering with gadgets and experiments.
Today, social media platforms have made science communication far more accessible and dynamic. Now that the pandemic is behind us, and with new AI-based tools emerging, we have an exciting time ahead to communicate science even better to future generations. The pandemic showed how crucial clear science communication is, and AI will only make it easier to engage the public with cutting-edge research in real time.
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