WSU researchers receive $1 million NASA grant

Researchers developing a skin biomedical sensor at Wichita State University have been awarded a $1.1 million grant from NASA.

The purpose of the sensor is to measure things like blood flow, intercranial pressure, blood health, blood gas levels and muscle degeneration.

NASA is interested in finding new, simple ways to measure those using just one sensor, said Kim Cluff, the principal researcher for the project and assistant professor in biomedical engineering.

This particular sensor is appealing because it doesn’t require traditional electrical components, he said.

“If one of those (electrical) components fails, the whole sensor fails,” Cluff said. “This is less prone to failure.”

The sensor attaches to a person’s arm like a patch. It includes a piece of copper that can be activated by a radio frequency, which causes the patch to resonate and create magnetic fields.

Those magnetic fields penetrate the tissue of a person, and their blood flow causes fluctuations that can be read by researchers. The patch does not require batteries or other wiring – it’s energized by external radio frequency, Cluff said.

Jeremy Patterson, a physiologist and director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Creativity at WSU, said they’ve been working on this project for a couple of years.

The technology was originally developed by NASA for other purposes, but this application is different because it’s testing biological measurements versus testing a wing of an airplane or measuring fuel in a tank, he said.

“Magnetic resonance is something you learn about in physics in high school, but it just hasn’t been explored on this level, which is exciting,” Patterson said.

Finding non-invasive ways to measure the pressure inside a person’s head has been challenging for scientists. Right now, the best ways to measure it are to do painful spinal taps or drill a hole in the head, Cluff said.

NASA is currently using ultrasound to try to measure it, but it doesn’t go through bone very well.

“It’s one of their main interests in our sensor,” he said.

It’s also appealing to NASA because of its light weight, he said.

“For every pound they put on the rocket to launch, it costs like $1 million, so they have to be very picky what they put on the spaceship,” he said.

“Real estate is a premium up there.”

Earlier this year, Cluff and his students visited the Johnson Space Center, where they toured labs and met with NASA scientists to discuss future collaboration.

In addition, the project is working with the Kansas Cosmosphere to put on a hands-on exhibit demonstrating NASA research in Kansas.

They also are working with Wichita North High School to provide summer research opportunities for three or four high school students, particularly those from backgrounds underrepresented in engineering.

“We want to involve them in research and inspire them to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields,” Cluff said.

Once the project receives approval from the WSU Institutional Review Board, they can begin human testing, Cluff said.

This story was originally published October 4, 2016 at 12:30 PM with the headline "WSU researchers receive $1 million NASA grant."