PhD Advisor: Professor Khaled Nabil Salama

Abstract:
Therapeutic drug monitoring is essential for medications with a narrow therapeutic window, where insufficient dosing can lead to treatment failure while excessive dosing can cause toxicity. However, conventional monitoring relies on intermittent blood sampling and laboratory analysis, providing only isolated measurements rather than continuous insight into drug concentration changes.

This dissertation presents an integrated platform for real-time in vivo drug monitoring, combining a miniaturized wearable potentiostat with an aptamer-functionalized microneedle sensor for continuous electrochemical detection of vancomycin in interstitial fluid. The platform integrates low-power electronics, wireless communication, signal processing, and molecular recognition to enable wearable-compatible drug monitoring. Its performance is demonstrated through electrochemical characterization, sensor validation, and in vivo experiments in mice, including continuous monitoring of vancomycin following intravenous administration.

The work establishes an integrated technological foundation for continuous therapeutic drug monitoring and outlines a path toward closed-loop drug delivery, in which real-time sensing could eventually inform personalized treatment decisions.

Bio:
Yurii Tsyban is a PhD candidate in Bioengineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working in the Sensors Lab under the supervision of Professor Khaled Nabil Salama. His research focuses on the development of integrated wearable biosensing systems for real-time monitoring of drugs and biomarkers.

His work combines bioelectrochemical sensing, aptamer-based molecular recognition, microneedle technologies, low-power electronics, embedded systems, and wireless instrumentation. During his doctoral research, he developed a miniaturized wearable potentiostat and integrated it with an aptamer-functionalized microneedle sensing platform for continuous in vivo monitoring of vancomycin. His broader research interests include wearable medical devices, continuous therapeutic drug monitoring, and integrated sensing systems for personalized and closed-loop healthcare.

He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from KAUST.