Summary

A minimally invasive electrochemical sensing platform that places tiny electrodes in or near target tissues (e.g., heart, nerves, vessels) to continuously detect specific biomolecules—including catecholamines and peptides—with high spatial and temporal resolution. This enables real-time physiologic monitoring and closed-loop therapies where today only intermittent labs or proxies exist. 

Background

Clinicians and researchers lack a way to measure key neurochemical signals inside organs in real time. Current methods (e.g., blood draws, microdialysis, biopsy) are intermittent, low-resolution, and invasive, limiting timely diagnosis, risk stratification, and titration of therapies in conditions like arrhythmias, heart failure, and inflammatory disease. 

Innovation

The invention integrates implantable/insertable electrodes (e.g., wire or microelectrodes) that can be positioned in tissue, vessels, or ganglia and driven with tailored voltage waveforms (e.g., fast-scan cyclic voltammetry) to read out diagnostic oxidation currents of target analytes; it also contemplates capacitive immunoprobe electrodes functionalized with receptor molecules for proteins/peptides, enabling label-free electrical detection. The system’s controller performs voltage clamping, waveform delivery (sawtooth/sinusoidal/steps), and current acquisition to both identify and quantify biomolecules in vivo—optionally at multiple regional sites simultaneously (e.g., around the heart) to map heterogeneous release and support closed-loop interventions.

Advantages

• True real-time chemistry inside organs (sub-second temporal resolution, multi-site mapping). 

• Minimally invasive placement (epicardial, vascular, intramural, or near autonomic ganglia). 

• Versatile analyte coverage: electroactive transmitters (e.g., norepinephrine/epinephrine) via FSCV and peptides/proteins via capacitive immunoprobes. 

• Quantitative & specific: waveform-derived voltammograms or antibody-based capacitive shifts enable analyte identification and calibration-based quantification.

• Enables closed-loop therapy: sensor data can drive neuromodulation/drug delivery to normalize pathologic chemistry in situ. 

• Improves on blood tests/microdialysis: higher fidelity, faster feedback, and regional specificity for organ-level decision-making. 

Potential Applications

• Cardiac care: mapping and monitoring myocardial norepinephrine/NPY to guide ablation, autonomic modulation, heart-failure management, and ischemia monitoring. 

• Neurocardiology & neuromodulation R&D: evaluate effects of stellate ganglion or vagal therapies by directly measuring neurotransmitter dynamics. 

• Critical care & peri-operative monitoring: real-time biochemical surveillance during cardiac surgery, shock, or sepsis

• Oncology/inflammation/endocrine: peptide/protein biomarker tracking in tissues or lymphatics using capacitive immunoprobes.

• Drug development & translational research: rapid PK/PD readouts of target engagement in large-animal models and, prospectively, human studies. 

Patent

US 2023/0255516 A1 — System and Method for Detection of Biomolecules in Tissues, Organs, and Extracellular Fluid (University of California San Diego). Published Aug 17, 2023. Link: [Google Patents] Google Patents

Publications

• Fast in vivo detection of myocardial norepinephrine levels in the beating porcine heart — Demonstrates minimally invasive FSCV to measure NE in a beating heart (large-animal model). Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 2020. Link: PDF. Physiology Journals

• Rapid measurement of cardiac neuropeptide dynamics by capacitive immunoprobe in the porcine heart — Shows electrical peptide sensing (NPY/VIP) via capacitive immunoprobes in vivo. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 2020/2021. Link: PDF. Physiology Journals

• Time-Resolved In Vivo Measurement of Neuropeptide Dynamics by Capacitive Immunoprobe in Porcine Heart — Method video article expanding capacitive immunoprobe approach. JoVE, 2022. Link. JoVE

• Bioelectronic block of stellate ganglia mitigates pacing-induced heterogeneous release of catecholamine and neuropeptide Y in the infarcted pig heart — Uses the team’s sensing toolkit to map neurochemical heterogeneity and therapeutic modulation. J Physiol, 2024/2025. Link.