Novel diffuse Optical method to combat skin color bias in non-invasive optical biomarker sensing devices such as pulse oximeters

During COVID-19, skin color bias in Optical Biomarkers Sensing (OBS) devices (e.g., pulse oximeter) was suspected to have contributed to the loss of lives in darkly pigmented people.

The Continuous Wave (CW) technology used in these devices is limited in accuracy and results are biased by skin color and light scattering in tissue.NOBIAS aims to break through frontiers to create foundational multilayer fast Time Domain Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy (TDDOS) to eliminate color bias and inaccuracy shortcomings of current CW technology and revolutionize the future of bias-free, accurate optical biomarker sensing.

To achieve this ambition, NOBIAS will create a multilayer TDDOS dynamic skin tissue model based on Monte Carlo to investigate the effect of skin type and anatomy on color bias, to optimize the concept, device and probe design to compensate and eliminate color bias and inaccuracies (WP1, Obj.1). 2 groundbreaking approaches (i) intermediate hybrid CW-TDDOS fusion approach (phase 1) is envisioned to compensate for skin color bias, followed by (ii) an ambitious new frontier fast TDDOS approach (phase 2) to eliminate color bias (WP2, Obj.2) and provide faster (100-250X), real time measurements at wearable footprint (100X).

A first-of-a-kind compensation algorithm based on real-time instrument response function (IRF), and phantom arm aims to deliver groundbreaking accuracy (14X) (WP3, Obj.3). Early benchtop testing and feedback across work packages will mitigate risks of ambitious objectives.

NOBIAS paradigm device/algorithm will be validated on tissue-mimicking phantoms and bias-free sensing will be demonstrated on blood biomarkers (haemoglobin (Hb, HbO), oxygen saturation (StO2, SpO2)) sensing at wrist location on healthy i) adults ii) infants (WP4, Obj.4).

NOBIAS breakthrough lays the foundation for the world’s first bias-free and accurate OBS devices and sets its legacy to be the gold standard for bias-free clinical and personal biomarkers sensing applications