Sydney ID researcher, A/Prof Sophie Stocker, will play a central role in a newly funded Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) initiative to develop a wearable, multi-analyte biosensor patch for real-time sepsis monitoring. The project, led by Nutromics, has received $3 million in federal funding as part of a broader $11.2 million collaboration.

Sepsis remains a major unmet clinical challenge, with high mortality driven in part by delays in recognition and treatment escalation. Current monitoring relies on intermittent clinical observations and laboratory testing, which can miss early physiological deterioration and biomarker trends.

This project aims to address that gap through development of a minimally invasive microneedle patch capable of continuously measuring key biomarkers, including lactate, CRP, procalcitonin, and creatinine, in real time. Continuous molecular data has the potential to provide earlier and more granular insight into disease trajectory compared with current episodic testing paradigms.

The University of Sydney team, led by Associate Professor Sophie Stocker from Sydney School of Pharmacy, will oversee clinical study design and execution, including validation in ICU and emergency department settings. This will involve comparison of continuous sensor data against standard-of-care laboratory assays, with a focus on diagnostic performance, time-to-detection, and integration into clinical workflows.

The project builds on prior first-in-human work demonstrating continuous molecular monitoring using the Nutromics platform, and combines this with advances in DNA-based biosensing and robotics-enabled sensor development to accelerate translation.

Importantly, the study will generate clinical evidence in real-world care settings, addressing key translational barriers including usability, workflow integration, and clinician decision-making. The multi-partner consortium, including UNSW, Bosch, Cytiva, and other industry collaborators, also reflects the increasing convergence of engineering, molecular diagnostics, and clinical research required to advance next-generation monitoring technologies.

Beyond sepsis, the platform has potential relevance for broader infectious diseases and acute care contexts where dynamic biomarker monitoring may inform earlier intervention, risk stratification, and treatment optimisation.

Read paper in Nature Biotechnology