PhD in microfluidic contact lenses for controlled tear collection and analysis

Are you excited about the future of wearable healthcare? Join us to merge microfluidics and contact lens technology, developing smart lenses that enable controlled tear fluid collection and analysis for non-invasive health monitoring.

Information
Tears contain a rich variety of biomarkers associated with both ocular and systemic diseases, including glaucoma, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and cancer. However, current tear-collection methods can alter tear composition and prevent reliable measurements, limiting the clinical adoption of tear-based diagnostics.

In this PhD project, you will develop innovative microfluidic contact lenses capable of collecting and analysing tear fluid in a controlled and non-invasive manner. By integrating microchannels, microvalves, and sensing functionalities into soft hydrogel lenses, you will help establish the technological foundation for a new generation of wearable diagnostic devices that enable continuous health monitoring.

In this position, you will:

• Design and develop microfluidic architectures and microvalve technologies for wearable contact lens applications.
• Apply advanced microfabrication techniques to integrate complex microfluidic systems into curved, hydrogel contact lenses.
• Investigate fluid transport, sensing capabilities, and material behaviour within hydrogel-based microsystems.
• Publish your research in leading scientific journals and present your work at international conferences.
• Collaborate with academic and industrial partners.
• Support teaching activities and supervise BSc and MSc students.

By joining this project, you will contribute to the future of personalized healthcare through technologies that could make disease detection and monitoring simpler, more accessible, and less invasive.

Embedding
You will contribute to the research activities of the Microsystems research section within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, headed by prof.dr.ir. Jaap den Toonder, and will be supervised by dr. Inês Figueiredo Pereira. The Microsystems group manages the Microfab/lab, a state-of-the-art micro fabrication facility that houses a range of micro manufacturing technologies – microfluidics technology is one of the main research pillars of the group.