Electronic Systems for Digital Health and Biomedical Engineering integrate electronic engineering principles to advance healthcare technology and improve patient outcomes. Focussing on developing advanced technologies, including wearable health monitors, diagnostic imaging systems, telemedicine platforms, rehabilitation devices, implantable sensors, smart signal analysis for wearable healthcare, rapid testing and diagnostic tools, and numerous other innovative healthcare solutions.
Examples you may know already
- Blood sugar monitoring – People with diabetes require frequent insulin injections to maintain their blood sugar levels. Previously this had to be carried out manually multiple times a day, but there now exist a wide range of glucose sensors that are able to continually monitor patients’ glucose levels and alert them of this.
- Smartwatches – Another very common example is heart-rate monitoring – you may own a smartwatch or a similar device that is able to monitor your heart rate, as well as other factors such as blood oxygen level and skin temperature. These electronic devices help us to keep track of our health and alert us if anything seems unusual.
Examples of Research at the University of Southampton
Tuberculosis monitoring
Researchers at Southampton have developed a new, innovative way to diagnose tuberculosis at the point of care. Every year over 10 million people fall ill with Tuberculosis, a disease which is treatable but for which access to testing is severely lacking. The proposed test system combines the low cost of traditional lateral flow tests (like home pregnancy tests) with the high sensitivity of advanced microfluidic systems. Using standard manufacturing methods, they built a device that handles tiny fluid samples and integrates sensors and test surfaces. One big benefit of this system is that it can be used alongside current standard technologies, making it portable and easy to use. This research is a significant advance in creating a versatile, high-precision system for sensitive biosensing, making it much easier for clinicians to accurately diagnose their patients.
Brain imaging using light
Other researchers have been developing systems that use near-infrared light to image the brain.
These non-invasive systems work by shining a particular wavelength of light through the skull. This light is picked up by sensitive detectors, before being processed using machine-learning techniques to generate maps of the brain comparable to those created by fMRI machines. The system can be seen in the figure below. Due to the easy-to-use nature of this setup, research is currently being carried out to miniaturise it to carry out neuroimaging of newborns. This could significantly aid our understanding of the development of neurological injury during the early stages of life.
Stroke classification
Work is also being carried out using wearable sensors to predict heart conditions such as ventricular arrythmia (VA), which can be fatal if left untreated. However, by monitoring the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from the heart and using advanced filtering and classification algorithms this condition can be reliably detected – research has shown that four different types of VA can be predicted 4 minutes before their onset with an accuracy of over 98%. This is another example of the life-saving work being carried out in Biomedical engineering at the University of Southampton.
Educational program pathway at the University of Southampton
Studying Biomedical Engineering at Southampton with a pathway in Electronic System would mean working at the #1 university for electrical and electronic engineering in the UK.
The biomedical engineering course at Southampton is closely linked to the real-world research being carried out at the university. From as early as year 1 students have the chance to engage with electronics-related design projects. This group project involves designing a system to detect and process ECG data for automatic heart monitoring.
Modules are tailored to give students a wide range of knowledge and experience needed for application in this area. To give a few examples:
- Students gain key knowledge about anatomy and biochemisty in modules such as ‘from molecules to life’ and ‘fundamentals of cell biology and physiology’. This is taught alongside key concepts from electronics in modules such as ‘sensor interfaces’.
- These topics are then integrated in modules such as ‘biosensors and diagnostics’, in which students use their knowledge of electronics and biology to explore how sensors can be designed to detect biological signals, such as glucose levels (for monitoring diabetes) or salt concentrations in the blood.
- Students also explore how to scale-down processes carried out in biological labs onto small-scale useable devices in modules such as ‘microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip’, where the counterintuitive properties of these systems are explored, alongside how this can be harnessed to create new innovative devices to solve real-world healthcare problems.
For more information on the Digital Health and Biomedical Engineering degree courses available at the University of Southampton see https://www.southampton.ac.uk/study/subjects/biomedical-medical-engineering.