Assistant Professor University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT, United States
The integration of electronics with medical devices can enable advanced sensing, actuation, and computational capability. Yet, at the fundamental level, such integration remains challenging due to the inherent geometrical, mechanical, and material dichotomies between conventional manufactured electronics and three-dimensional systems. My research develops electronics printing strategies that are fundamentally free from the constraints of the conventional manufacturing approach, enabling the creation of biomedical devices and architecture with an unprecedented level of functional integration. First, we demonstrated the ability to incorporate active electronics with a three-dimensional construct by achieving multiscale control of nanomaterials assembly with soft matter physics phenomena and machine intelligence. Second, we developed the ability to selectively anneal nanomaterials on temperature-sensitive constructs by exploiting metamaterials-inspired electromagnetic structure, enabling local programming of electronic and mechanical properties of spatially freeform microstructure on biomedical devices and biological constructs. Third, we explored the novel integration of freeform electronics with digitally designed architecture and metastructure to create next-generation bioelectronics, such as ingestible gastric resident electronics systems and self-learning robots that can realize a surgical-free digital-based diagnosis and treatment strategy. Ultimately, we strive to overcome challenges associated with the conventional manufacturing approach, creating fundamentally new classes of bioelectronics that can address a broad range of unmet clinical, defense, and societal needs.