Every year there is a brand new TU Eindhoven Sensing Team that represents our university at the SensUs competition. For the next team, we require Bachelor and Master students to form a multidisciplinary team. Students with knowledge in the field of (bio)chemistry are necessary for the assay development and chemical optimization. We also require people with a background in physics to assist with the physical principles of biosensing. Electrical engineering and programming subjects are important too, like signal processing and the translating of the binding of a molecule to a usable, measurable signal. Throughout the process, you have to keep the end-user in mind: the patient. This requires design choices for user-friendliness, portability, and cost. Lastly, you have to stay in touch with the outside world, requiring public relations work and drawing in sponsors. T.E.S.T. 2021 will be formed in October 2020 and will operate until the SensUs competition in September 2021. If you are up for an amazing challenge and want to gain new skills and knowledge, join T.E.S.T. 2021!
We are student team T.E.S.T. which represents the Netherlands during the 2020 SensUs competition. Our multidisciplinary team consists of 11 students from the Eindhoven University of Technology including second- and third-year bachelor and first year master students from the following majors: Medical Sciences and Technology, Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. We started this project to learn more about developing a real-life product that could help many people. In our opinion, this is a great opportunity to use the knowledge acquired during our studies in a practical way. All team members have different interests and individual goals they want to achieve in this project. Our final dream is to develop a biosensor that is easy to use, affordable, works well and has the potential to help a lot of people. Besides this we hope to find a good way to make the device available to the commercial market.
The challenge of SensUs 2020 is to develop a biosensor for the measurement of unbound Valproate. This is a biological drug that is prescribed to patients suffering from epilepsy. Epilepsy is a chronic noncommunicable disease of the brain that affects people of all ages. Around 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, making it one of the most common neurological diseases globally.