Microneedle Patch Enables At-Home Monitoring of Acute Kidney Injury

Kidney disease is often silent in its early stages, making timely detection difficult outside clinical settings. Early biomarkers such as neutrophil gelatinase–associated lipocalin can require blood draws and refrigerated handling, which limits home or point‑of‑care use. Simpler, minimally invasive testing could expand access to earlier diagnosis and monitoring. To help address this challenge, researchers have developed a painless microneedle skin patch that captures kidney injury biomarkers.

Engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, working with Washington University School of Medicine and Texas A&M University, created a patch designed for quick, safe sampling from the skin. The device aims to support earlier identification of kidney injury and to enable monitoring outside traditional laboratories. The approach focuses on stable, on‑skin biomarker capture to simplify logistics and expand access.

The technology uses microneedles coated with a metal‑organic framework (MOF) to sample interstitial fluid. The MOF forms a protective shell that both detects and preserves antibodies targeting neutrophil gelatinase–associated lipocalin (NGAL), an early, clinically validated biomarker of acute kidney injury. The patch captured biomarkers for accurate quantification and maintained antibody function for up to four weeks at 50°F-equivalent 50°C without refrigeration, supporting potential use in home or resource‑limited settings.

Findings were published in Advanced Materials on August 5, 2026. According to the team, this is the first demonstration that encapsulating biomolecules on microneedles can preserve their biological functions. The work builds on earlier microneedle patches and adapts the platform to achieve higher sensitivity and a broader dynamic range while addressing cold‑chain constraints that limit current NGAL testing. NGAL rises in blood within hours of kidney injury, but dependence on phlebotomy and refrigerated logistics has impeded its use for at‑home or remote monitoring.

“This metal-organic framework encapsulation is a simple and highly effective way to create microneedle sensors that are resilient to environmental challenges and provide a scalable path to minimally invasive biosensing for at-home or remote health monitoring,” said Srikanth Singamaneni, Lilyan & E. Lisle Hughes Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Washington University in St. Louis.

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