Biomedical Devices
Objective: Can we fabricate smart medical devices without expensive cleanroom facilities for their unique medical needs?
1. Smart Bandages: Using a combination of screen printing and drop casting, we have made closed-loop smart bandages that can sense wound biomarkers in real-time, and even deliver drugs on demand (see BioFlex). The bandages in contact with the wound are less than 3mm thick attached to an electronics button that provides electronics for readout and wireless communication to a smartphone.
2. Microneedles: Using advances in stereoligraphy (SLA) 3D printing and laser micromachining, we have developed a cleanroom-free cost-effective microfabrication process to make complex 3D biomedical devices for different applications. For the first time, we have made large-area microneedles for painless transdermal drug delivery. Approach allows us to make microneedles that are hard or soft, solid or hollow, inert or bio-resorbable on either hard or flexible substrate. We have validated these microneedles for drug delivery ex vivo.
3. Pills: We are also making ingestible pills with embedded microfluidic channels, micro-pumps, electronics and battery for different applications targeting stomach and GI disorders. Results forthcoming!
4. Tissue Embedded Diagnostics: We have invented a reel-to-reel processing of treating and coating textile threads to create thread-based platforms (see BioFlex) for tissue-embedded diagnostics in the form of smart surgical sutures that can sense how the wound is healing and even deliver drugs in realtime.
5. Sweat Patches: We have leveraged our thread-based sensing technology (see BioFlex) for real time monitoring of sweat. Results forthcoming!
6. Other: Electronic Skin (sense temperature, pressure and touch) for prosthetics, Microelectrode arrays for brain implants, Brain-machine interface using smart threads etc.
Sample publications:
1. Smart Bandages: Using a combination of screen printing and drop casting, we have made closed-loop smart bandages that can sense wound biomarkers in real-time, and even deliver drugs on demand (see BioFlex). The bandages in contact with the wound are less than 3mm thick attached to an electronics button that provides electronics for readout and wireless communication to a smartphone.
2. Microneedles: Using advances in stereoligraphy (SLA) 3D printing and laser micromachining, we have developed a cleanroom-free cost-effective microfabrication process to make complex 3D biomedical devices for different applications. For the first time, we have made large-area microneedles for painless transdermal drug delivery. Approach allows us to make microneedles that are hard or soft, solid or hollow, inert or bio-resorbable on either hard or flexible substrate. We have validated these microneedles for drug delivery ex vivo.
3. Pills: We are also making ingestible pills with embedded microfluidic channels, micro-pumps, electronics and battery for different applications targeting stomach and GI disorders. Results forthcoming!
4. Tissue Embedded Diagnostics: We have invented a reel-to-reel processing of treating and coating textile threads to create thread-based platforms (see BioFlex) for tissue-embedded diagnostics in the form of smart surgical sutures that can sense how the wound is healing and even deliver drugs in realtime.
5. Sweat Patches: We have leveraged our thread-based sensing technology (see BioFlex) for real time monitoring of sweat. Results forthcoming!
6. Other: Electronic Skin (sense temperature, pressure and touch) for prosthetics, Microelectrode arrays for brain implants, Brain-machine interface using smart threads etc.
Sample publications:
- Low-cost and cleanroom-free fabrication of microneedles. Microsystems & Nanoengineering - Nature, 4, 17073, 2018.
- A toolkit of thread-based microfluidics, sensors, and electronics for 3D tissue embedding for medical diagnostics.Microsystems & Nanoengineering - Nature 2, 16039, 2016
- Smart Bandage for Monitoring and Treatment of Chronic Wounds, Small, 14(33), p.1703509, 2018
- A textile dressing for temporal and dosage controlled drug delivery, Advanced Functional Materials, 27(41), p.1702399, 2017