Edinburgh Skin Network

Materials and sensors

Materials and sensors members and overview

Michael Crichton Wilson Poon Norbert Radacsi Daniel Hodgson
Alex Lips Ian Underwood Andreia Da Silva Fonseca Laura Charlton
Shazia Khan Carmel Moran Connor Bain Sara Medina-Lombardero

The skin’s easy accessibility and its composition makes it an ideal window into what is happening more widely within the body.  Both consumer and clinical devices for measuring patient conditions are therefore looking to exploit the sensing potential of the skin.  More widely, this field is often referred to as the application of ‘wearables’, which brings together a range of multidisciplinary approaches for sensing.  This area couples closely with that of material science where the development of new materials provide more effective ways to interface with the body, or help to heal injuries.

Key sub-themes include

  • The characterisation of the mechanical changes in skin and other soft tissues during disease.  This enables a greater understanding of disease management and for the purpose of developing novel sensors to measure these clinically. Approaches in this theme include material characterisation methods (including nanoindentation, digital image correlation and atomic force microscopy) along with piezoelectric actuators, multi-modal vibration dynamics, optical coherence tomography, tissue histology and acoustic wave propagation physics (Crichton, Underwood, Bain, Medina-Lombardero).
  • Using the atomic force microscope (AFM) as an advanced multipurpose tool to probe nanometre scale morphology and also the nanomechanical, physicochemical, adhesive and frictional properties of surfaces, thin films and coatings, including skin (Koutsos, Charlton).
  • Fabrication of artificial skin constructs and vascular grafts by electrospinning and bioprinting.  This theme aims to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms controlling inflammatory processes, especially the mechanisms involved in the resolution of inflammation (including skin inflammation), tissue repair and regeneration with a view to help develop novel therapies for chronic inflammatory and fibrotic diseases (Radacsi)
  • Soft matter physics involving the study of structure, formulation, stability and flow of topical skin formulations. Use of physical characterisation tools to understand the stratum corneum and how it interacts with dermatological formulations (Poon, Hodgson, Li, Fonseca Da Silva; Edinburgh Complex Fluids)
  • Bacterial biophysics, including motility, adhesion and death (Poon, A Brown). Developing a human skin biofilm model that can be used for high-throughput testing of skin disinfection formulations (Direito Lebre, A Brown).
  • Mass spectrometry imaging to identify molecules in tissue sections and create regional maps of their locations, including the metabolome and lipidome, steroids and drug analysis (Khan). 
  • Development of novel high resolution ultrasound imaging techniques (Moran)

Edinburgh Complex Fluids

Crichton Lab

Radacsi Lab