BME’s Dmitry Kireev Plays Key Role in $31-million ARPA-H Grant

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Dmitry Kireev

Chronic inflammation is often called the “silent killer” and is linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and inflammatory bowel disease. One especially deadly form of inflammation is sepsis, which is involved in one in five deaths worldwide. Now, in order the track the silent killer in diseases such as sepsis, lupus, and other inflammatory disorders, Assistant Professor Dmitry Kireev of the UMass Amherst Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department is playing a vital role in a 14-partner, $31-million research project led by New York University (NYU) and funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)Delphi program. See NYU press release: https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/skin-patch-tracks-inflammation-around-clock-could-provide-early-warning-signs-they-turn-deadly.

The lead for the project is Elisa Riedo, the Herman F. Mark Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NYU Tandon and Professor of Physics at NYU’s College of Arts and Science.

The four-and-half-year, multi-disciplinary project is engineering a skin patch called “SENTINEL” that tracks inflammation in such diseases as sepsis and lupus around the clock and thereby provides early warning signs of inflammatory diseases before they turn deadly. The device aims to give patients and doctors early warning signs of sepsis, lupus flareups, and other worsening chronic diseases before lasting damage is done.

As the NYU release described the device, “The patch, smaller than a fingernail, will pair a sensing microchip with microneedles made of hyaluronic acid, a substance found naturally in skin. The needles sample fluid just beneath the skin, where inflammation biomarkers circulate. The microchip is made of transistors, the tiny switches inside every computer. Each transistor will be coated with a molecule that latches onto one biomarker and changes the transistor's electrical signal. Companion chips will power the patch and send encrypted readings to a phone.”

According to Kireev, “While the consortium's initial demonstration focuses on continuous monitoring of inflammatory biomarkers using minimally invasive microneedles, the broader goal is to establish a reusable technology platform that could be adapted to many other biological targets and medical applications.”

The particular role of Kireev and his 2D Bioelectronics Lab is to characterize, integrate, and validate the new technology in preparation for use in multiple applications. “Ultimately,” as he said, “our contribution is to help bridge the gap between individually functional electronic and biosensing components and a fully integrated, reliable, wearable system.”

In that context, as Kireev explained, “Our team's role at UMass Amherst is to support system integration and ensure that these independently developed components can function together as a reliable biosensor. One of the central challenges is that electronic circuits and biochemical sensors have fundamentally different requirements. Some electronic components must be protected from moisture and biological fluids, others (wet biosensing) must be directly exposed to bioliquids to detect target molecules. We will work closely with our collaborators to develop and validate packaging strategies that reconcile these competing requirements, integrating protected electronic chiplets with exposed field-effect transistor biosensors and microneedle-based interfaces.”

In view of those functions, said Kireev, “A major focus of our laboratory will be the electrical characterization and long-term validation of these devices. We will investigate how encapsulation, assembly, and prolonged exposure to physiological environments affect transistor performance, including electrical stability, signal drift, and sensing functionality.” 

As the NYU press release explained the vital need for this project, chronic inflammation drives many of medicine's deadliest conditions, but currently doctors can check it only with occasional blood draws. Sepsis, a life-threatening condition caused when the body’s infection-fighting processes overreact and cause inflammation throughout the body, strikes about 1.7-million U.S. adults a year, and at least 350,000 of them die or are discharged to hospice. In lupus, an autoimmune condition in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs,inflammation signals can shift dramatically just weeks before a flareup severely damages the kidneys and other organs.

“This patch will save lives,” said Riedo in the NYU release. “SENTINEL will provide safe, streamlined tracking of inflammation in the human body and alert people if sepsis is developing.” NYU noted that the patch could also monitor inflammation related to many other conditions, much as continuous glucose monitors have done for people with diabetes.

The ARPA-H Delphi program said it is soliciting research on “discreet and low-cost wearable devices that could help Americans continuously track deep biological information.” Among other goals, the program is funding projects that are developing electronic devices that can continuously monitor bodily signals and help patients prevent life-threatening health crises, better manage chronic conditions, safely recover from illness outside of hospital, and improve their overall wellness. (November 2026)