Associate Prof The University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona, United States
Introduction: The concept of digital medicine, which relies on streams of continuous information from the body to gain insight into health status, manage disease and predict onset health problems, is currently relying on biosensors with limited chronic capabilities.[1][2] Key technological hurdles that slow the proliferation of this approach are means by which clinical grade biosingals are continuously obtained without frequent user interaction.[3] To overcome these hurdles, solutions in power supply and interface strategies that maintain high fidelity readouts and function chronically are critical. Current approaches for high fidelity recordings typically rely on adhesive interfaces that are subject to epidermal turnover, limiting sensor lifetime. Additionally, they rely on electrochemical power supplies which are subject to frequent recharge, add bulk and weight, require user interaction and introduce motion artefacts.
Materials and
Methods: Here we introduce a new class of devices that overcomes the limitations of current approaches by utilizing context aware mechanical and electromagnetic design facilitated through digital human behavior assessment to create unique personalized devices optimized to the wearer. Specifically, we introduce new methods to use behavioral analysis of a user group to shape design to enable indefinite device lifetimes.[4] These elastomeric, 3D printed and laser structured constructs, called biosymbiotic devices, enable adhesive-free interfaces and the inclusion of high performance, far field energy harvesting to facilitate continuous wireless and battery-free operation of multimodal and multi device, high-fidelity biosensing in an at-home setting without user interaction.
Results, Conclusions, and Discussions: We present devices that can operate over weeks at the time, enable new sensing paradigms such as circumferential muscle strain, high fidelity absolute position sensing, mK resolution thermography, electrophysiology and perspiration sensing to capture an encompassing and evolving record of health. We also demonstrate therapeutic applications with haptic feedback to enable 24/7 digital medicine. The impact of this approach is also showcased in wearable devices that are low profile, soft and can transmit high fidelity biosignal data over tens of miles of distance without cell connection uninterrupted over weeks without user interaction.
References [1] T. R. Ray, J. Choi, A. J. Bandodkar, S. Krishnan, P. Gutruf, L. Tian, R. Ghaffari, J. A. Rogers, Chem. Rev. 2019, 119, 5461. [2] J. Heikenfeld, A. Jajack, J. Rogers, P. Gutruf, L. Tian, T. Pan, R. Li, M. Khine, J. Kim, J. Wang, Lab Chip 2018, 18, 217. [3] T. Stuart, L. Cai, A. Burton, P. Gutruf, Biosens. Bioelectron. 2021, 113007. [4] S. Tucker, K. K. Albert, I. I. Christian, M. D. Thomas, P. Roberto, H. Jessica, J. Megan, F. Max, L. Thomas, U. Paul, G. Philipp, Sci. Adv. 2021, 7, eabj3269.
