#Bioelectronics hydrogels

[materialsscienceandengineering]

New hydrogel semiconductor could lead to better tissue-interfaced bioelectronics

The ideal material for interfacing electronics with living tissue is soft, stretchable, and just as water-loving as the tissue itself—in short, a hydrogel. Semiconductors, the key materials for bioelectronics such as pacemakers, biosensors, and drug delivery devices, on the other hand, are rigid, brittle, and water-hating, impossible to dissolve in the way hydrogels have traditionally been built. A paper published today in Science from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) has solved this challenge that has long stymied researchers, reimagining the process of creating hydrogels to build a powerful semiconductor in hydrogel form. Led by Asst. Prof. Sihong Wang's research group, the result is a bluish gel that flutters like a sea jelly in water but retains the immense semiconductive ability needed to transmit information between living tissue and machine. The material demonstrated tissue-level moduli as soft as 81 kPa, stretchability of 150% strain, and charge-carrier mobility up to 1.4 cm2 V-1 s-1. This means their material—both semiconductor and hydrogel at the same time—ticks all the boxes for an ideal bioelectronic interface.

Read more.

[sweatybelieverfun]

Electronic Skin Market Future Trends: Innovations in AI, Wearables, and Sustainable Materials

The electronic skin market is poised for significant growth, with projections estimating its value to reach over USD 37 billion by 2030. This surge is fueled by technological advancements and increasing demand across various sectors, including healthcare, robotics, and consumer electronics.

1. Healthcare Applications and AI Integration

E-skin technologies are revolutionizing healthcare by enabling continuous, non-invasive monitoring of vital signs such as heart rate, temperature, and glucose levels. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) enhances the predictive capabilities of these devices, allowing for early detection of health anomalies and personalized treatment plans. Bioelectronic patches are being developed to monitor chronic diseases and administer medications in real-time, improving patient care and clinical outcomes.

2. Advancements in Smart Textiles

The fusion of e-skin with smart textiles is creating garments capable of monitoring physiological parameters, adjusting to environmental conditions, and providing haptic feedback. These innovations are particularly beneficial for athletes, patients, and health-conscious consumers seeking real-time health insights. The development of washable, stretchable, and biodegradable materials ensures comfort and sustainability in daily wear, making e-skin textiles more viable for everyday use.

3. Robotics and Prosthetics Enhancement

In robotics, e-skin imparts tactile sensing abilities, enabling robots to interact more naturally with their environment. This is crucial in fields like healthcare and manufacturing, where delicate operations are required. Similarly, prosthetic limbs equipped with e-skin can provide users with sensory feedback, improving the functionality and user experience of artificial limbs. These technologies are enhancing human-machine interaction and creating more intuitive robotic systems.

4. Sustainable and Self-Healing Materials

The push towards sustainability has led to the development of e-skin materials that are not only biodegradable but also possess self-healing properties. These materials extend the lifespan of e-skin devices and reduce environmental impact. For example, hydrogel-based e-skins can sense temperature and strain while repairing minor damage on their own. Such innovations support the longevity and eco-friendliness of e-skin products.

5. Regional Market Dynamics

Regionally, North America currently leads the e-skin market, driven by strong research and development investments and a robust healthcare infrastructure. However, the Asia-Pacific region is experiencing rapid growth, with countries like India and China investing heavily in healthcare technology and consumer electronics. Factors such as increasing healthcare needs, an aging population, and the adoption of wearable technology are contributing to this regional expansion.

6. Challenges and Considerations

Despite the promising outlook, the e-skin market faces challenges, including high production costs due to expensive raw materials like graphene. Additionally, regulatory hurdles and concerns over data privacy and cybersecurity pose potential barriers to widespread adoption. Addressing these issues through innovation, strategic partnerships, and regulatory compliance will be essential for the sustainable growth of the industry.

In conclusion, the electronic skin market is on a trajectory of rapid expansion, driven by technological innovations and increasing applications across various sectors. As advancements continue in AI integration, smart textiles, and sustainable materials, e-skin technologies are set to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of healthcare, robotics, and wearable electronics.

[electronicslife]

🧬 Hydrogel Semiconductors: A Revolution in Bioelectronics

The future of healthcare is here—and it’s softer, smarter, and more biocompatible than ever. Hydrogel semiconductors are breaking boundaries, merging biology with technology to power next-gen medical devices.

💡 What You’ll Discover in the Article: ✔️ How hydrogel semiconductors improve biocompatibility and flexibility ✔️ Applications in implantable devices, biosensors, and wound care ✔️ The challenges and breakthroughs in this exciting field ✔️ How this innovation is set to transform patient outcomes

✨ Why It Matters:

Hydrogel semiconductors closely mimic living tissue, reducing inflammation and improving biosensing.

They open doors to better pacemakers, brain-machine interfaces, and continuous health monitoring.

🔗 Explore the full article and see how this breakthrough is shaping the future of bioelectronics.

Let’s build a healthier tomorrow with cutting-edge technology and innovative thinking.

[feral-ferrule]

I should tag him

[jhavelikes]

Hydrogel-enabled skin bioelectronics that can continuously monitor health for extended periods is crucial for early disease detection and treatment. However, it is challenging to engineer ultrathin gas-permeable hydrogel sensors that can self-adhere to the human skin for long-term daily use (>1 week). Here, we present a ~10-micrometer-thick polyurethane nanomesh–reinforced gas-permeable hydrogel sensor that can self-adhere to the human skin for continuous and high-quality electrophysiological monitoring for 8 days under daily life conditions. This research involves two key steps: (i) material design by gelatin-based thermal-dependent phase change hydrogels and (ii) robust thinness geometry achieved through nanomesh reinforcement. The resulting ultrathin hydrogels exhibit a thickness of ~10 micrometers with superior mechanical robustness, high skin adhesion, gas permeability, and anti-drying performance. To highlight the potential applications in early disease detection and treatment that leverage the collective features, we demonstrate the use of ultrathin gas-permeable hydrogels for long-term, continuous high-precision electrophysiological monitoring under daily life conditions up to 8 days.

A 10-micrometer-thick nanomesh-reinforced gas-permeable hydrogel skin sensor for long-term electrophysiological monitoring | Science Advances

[daniloqp]

This device could tune your heart and then dissolve

This device could tune your heart and then dissolve

https://theministerofcapitalism.com/blog/this-device-could-tune-your-heart-and-then-dissolve/

The first medical implant to reach this breakthrough was a thin sheet that electrically shakes the injured tissues. initiate nerve regeneration, which the team tested in rats. Rogers partnered with cardiologists, including Arora, who saw an opportunity to abandon the traditional temporary pacemakers that were used to treat slow heart rhythms. Rogers compares this soluble device to an internal wound healer, an “electronic medicine” in which all components are soluble.

Illustration: Northwestern University / George Washington University

At first glance, the device half an inch wide and half an inch long may look like a weak plastic strip. But in reality, it is a dynamic stack of carefully selected surfaces and elements. Electrical contacts are a mixture of tungsten and magnesium. Wireless power is introduced into these contacts by means of a coiled flat antenna made of the same materials. Power comes from a field-specific communication antenna or NFC-compatible antenna, which could sit on a hospital bed or a wearable patch. (Sorry, the phone’s pay-per-view NFC isn’t yet effective enough to break any hearts).

Having a stable electrical contact is essential for any cardiac device, as it depends on each blood pumping contraction heart cells firing rapid impulses. But a device must also be dynamic. When a wet heart fills and empties, its curved surface becomes stressed and tense. The challenge of doing something that is stable i flexible has been “kind of an open question for this field for a while,” Rogers says. “Bioelectronics is great, but how can you maintain robust interfaces over time?”

The team solved this problem with an adhesive hydrogel, which not only sticks to the heart mechanically, but also sticks. chemically. The hydrogel forms covalent bonds with the surface of the tissue. The loose molecular threads of the hydrogel and the heart are chemically woven. The nitrogen atoms of one fuse with those of carbon to the other, and vice versa, form strong, protein-like connections. “It provides an intimate electrical and mechanical coupling,” Rogers says.

Each layer can begin to dissolve as soon as it gets wet and it is important that the device does not degrade too soon after implantation. Thus, the pacemaker is housed inside a soluble polymer housing that acts as a shock absorber against time; the hardware has two weeks to do its job while the carcass dissolves. The rest begins to decompose after that, but then the patient should no longer need the pacemaker. In cases where a more durable device is needed, the team could build a verison with a thicker capsule.

The team tested the device on animals with small hearts (rats and mice), medium hearts (rabbits) and with almost human-sized hearts (dogs). In all cases, the device could control the heart rate of an animal. (They also tested tissues isolated from human donors and found the same success.)

Rogers and Arora’s team also tested how the pacemakers faded into rats. They showed that the devices remained intact for a week, dissolved mainly at three weeks, and stopped working at four weeks. By 12 weeks, they were completely gone.

“Achieving this functionality, but also making the whole thing disappear without having potentially dangerous or toxic by-products, is a huge challenge,” he says. Ellen Roche, an MIT biomedical engineer who develops cardiac devices, who did not participate in this work. “Regardless, any of these things are doable,” Roche continues. “But doing them both together, I think, is a big hit.”

“It’s great to see simple materials; we already know about its toxicity load, “says Chris Bettinger, a biomedical engineer at Carnegie Mellon.” I think simplicity is often underestimated. “

But an invasive device like a pacemaker will require much more testing to demonstrate safety and efficacy in humans. Another challenge could be the landscape of the surface of the heart, which would be much more damaged among cardiac patients than among laboratory animals. Raman, the cardiologist who is not part of Arora’s team, points out that some of the people who may need such devices already have tissue scars caused by heart disease and blockages, which would make it difficult to form electrical connections. . “But based on the design, it could be assumed that it’s likely to work,” Raman says.

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[materialsscienceandengineering]

Researchers use hydrogel chemistry and microfabrication to miniaturize and integrate components into bioelectronics

Figuring out a better way to connect nerve cells to bioelectronics will be the next technological leap in health care, and the Neurobiological Interfaces Lab at Binghamton University is at the forefront of research on the topic. Led by Assistant Professor Siyuan Rao from the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science's Department of Biomedical Engineering, the lab is making advancements toward understanding the mechanisms that keep our brains functioning and developing effective treatments to help when things go wrong. The latest research, published in Nature Communications, outlines hydrogel chemistry and microfabrication methods for miniaturizing and integrating multiple components into brain bioelectronics. Hydrogels resemble living tissue because of their high water content, softness, flexibility and biocompatibility.

Read more.

[biotechworld]

A touch of silver

A touch of silver

Researchers develop unique Ag-hydrogel composite for soft bioelectronics Credit: Soft Machines Lab, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University In the field of robotics, metals offer advantages like strength, durability, and electrical conductivity. But, they are heavy and rigid–properties that are undesirable in soft and flexible systems for wearable computing and human-machine…

[paleocookingbook]

Soft and Ion‐Conducting Materials in Bioelectronics: From Conducting Polymers to Hydrogels https://ift.tt/2TDsCkn

[thrivous]

The programmable, CRISPR-responsive smart biomaterials developed at Harvard and MIT (see below) promise to find many clinical and industrial applications.

“Our study shows that the power of CRISPR can be harnessed outside of the laboratory for controlling the behavior of DNA-responsive materials,” said Wyss Institute Founding Core Faculty member James Collins.

“We developed a range of materials with very different capabilities that highlight the breadth of applications enabled by programmable CRISPR-responsive smart materials. These applications include novel theranostic strategies, point-of-care diagnostics, and the regional monitoring of epidemic outbreaks and environmental hazards.”

This breakthrough “demonstrates the value of CRISPR technology for entirely new fields, ranging from diagnostics and theragnostics to bioelectronics, and marks yet another inspiring inflection point for biomedical developments enabled by this bioinspired technology,” added Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber.

CRISPR-responsive smart biomaterials. Scientists at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and MIT have demonstrated programmable CRISPR-responsive smart materials that could open the door to novel tissue engineering, bioelectronic, and diagnostic applications. A research paper published in Science shows that, upon activation by specific natural or user-defined DNA stimuli, a CRISPR-Cas enzyme enables a variety of smart materials to release bound cargo such as fluorescent dyes and active enzymes, change their structures to deploy encapsulated nanoparticles and live cells, or regulate electric circuits thereby converting biological into electric signals.

Research advances against incurable children's brain cancer. Researchers led by Yale University, University of Iowa, and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, have discovered a new pathway that may improve success against an incurable type of children's brain cancer. The study results, published today in Nature Communications, suggest that scientists have identified a unique way to disrupt the cellular process that contributes to Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG).

Dogs help maintain a healthy heart. Owning a pet may help maintain a healthy heart, especially if that pet is a dog, according to an analysis of a wide sample of people in the city of Brno, Czech Republic, from January 2013 through December 2014. The study, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, examines the association of pet ownership - specifically dog ownership - with cardiovascular disease risk factors and cardiovascular health.

The physical basis of successful ion therapy against cancer. Researchers at TU Vienna have demonstrated physical processes for ion therapy, which harnesses complex atomic effects to destroy cancer cells. A study published in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters shows that, owing to a process called interatomic coulombic decay, an ion can pass on additional energy to surrounding atoms. This frees a huge number of electrons, with precisely the right amount of energy to cause optimal damage to the DNA of the cancer cells.

Soft robotic muscles for advanced prosthetics. Researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed an ultrathin, artificial muscle for soft robotics. The advancement, recently reported in Science Robotics, was demonstrated with a robotic blooming flower brooch, dancing robotic butterflies and fluttering tree leaves on a kinetic art piece. The researchers are persuaded that soft robotic muscles could have a wide variety of applications, from wearable electronics to advanced prosthetics.

How pressure-sensing proteins work. Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and The Rockefeller University have discovered the basic mechanism of Piezo proteins, which function as sensors in the body for mechanical stimuli such as touch, bladder fullness, and blood pressure. The research results, published in Nature, open up many new paths of investigation into the roles of Piezo proteins in human diseases and potential new therapeutic strategies.

New promising approach to cancer immunotherapy. Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a new therapeutic approach for cancer, which halts drug resistance and cancer progression by using an antibody that induces the immune system to seek and kill cancer cells. Promising research results with laboratory mice, published in Cancer Research, have been obtained by using a monoclonal antibody that induces the immune system to seek and kill ανβ3-expressing cancer cells.

New hydrogel promotes tissue repair and regeneration. Bioengineers and dentists at UC Los Angeles have developed a new hydrogel that is more porous and effective in promoting tissue repair and regeneration. A study published in Nature Communications shows that, once injected in a mouse model, the new hydrogel induces migration of naturally occurring stem cells to better promote bone healing. Current experimental applications, using hydrogels and stem cells introduced into the body or expensive biological agents, can come with negative side effects.

Originally published at thrivous.com on August 26, 2019 at 03:07PM.

[royalvoxpost]

#FlexibleElectronics #Neuroscience: researchers have developed a 3D printable conducting polymer ink for fabricating conductive microscale structures. The conducting hydrogel could be used to design highly sensitive soft neural probes - https://t.co/YVXDtUdKQl #Bioelectronics https://t.co/cNFleWf5IX

#FlexibleElectronics #Neuroscience: researchers have developed a 3D printable conducting polymer ink for fabricating conductive microscale structures. The conducting hydrogel could be used to design highly sensitive soft neural probes - https://t.co/YVXDtUdKQl #Bioelectronics pic.twitter.com/cNFleWf5IX

— The Royal Vox Post (@RoyalVoxPost) March 30, 2020

via Twitter https://twitter.com/RoyalVoxPost March 30, 2020 at 03:44PM

[dorcasrempel]

How to get conductive gels to stick when wet

Polymers that are good conductors of electricity could be useful in biomedical devices, to help with sensing or electrostimulation, for example. But there has been a sticking point preventing their widespread use: their inability to adhere to a surface such as a sensor or microchip, and stay put despite moisture from the body.

Now, researchers at MIT have come up with a way of getting conductive polymer gels to adhere to wet surfaces.

The new adhesive method is described today in the journal Science Advances in a paper by MIT doctoral student Hyunwoo Yuk, former visiting scholar Akihisa Inoue, postdoc Baoyang Lu, and professor of mechanical engineering Xuanhe Zhao.

Most electrodes used for biomedical devices are made of platinum or platinum-iridium alloys, Zhao explains. These are very good electrical conductors that are durable inside the moist environment of the body, and chemically stable so they do not interact with the surrounding tissues. But their stiffness is a major drawback. Because they can’t flex and stretch as the body moves, they can damage delicate tissues.

Conductive polymers such as PEDOT:PSS, by contrast, can very closely match the softness and flexibility of the vulnerable tissues in the body. The tricky part has been getting them to stay attached to the biomedical devices they are connected to. Researchers have been struggling for years to make these polymers durable in the moist and always-moving environments of the body.

“There have been thousands of papers talking about the advantages of these materials,” Yuk says, but the companies that make biomedical devices “just don’t use them,” because they need materials that are exceedingly reliable and stable. A failure of the material could require an invasive surgical procedure to replace it, which carries additional risk for the patient.

Stiff metal electrodes “sometimes harm the tissues, but they work well in terms of reliability and stability over a period of years,” which has not been the case with polymer substitutes until now, he says.

Most efforts to address this problem have involved making significant modifications to the polymer materials to improve their durability and their ability to adhere, but Yuk says that creates problems of its own: Companies have already invested heavily in equipment to manufacture these polymers, and major changes to the formulation would require significant investment in new production equipment. These changes would be for a market that is relatively small in economic terms, though large in potential impact. Other approaches that have been tried are limited to specific materials. Instead, the MIT team focused on making the fewest changes possible, to ensure compatibility with existing production methods, and making the method applicable to a wide variety of materials.

Their method involves an extremely thin adhesive layer between the conductive polymer hydrogel and the substrate material. Though only a few nanometers thick (billionths of a meter), this layer turns out to be effective at making the gels adhere to any of a wide variety of commonly used substrate materials, including glass, polyimide, indium tin oxide, and gold. The adhesive layer penetrates into the polymer itself, producing a tough, durable protective structure that keeps the material in place even when exposed for long periods to a wet environment.

The adhesive layer can be applied to the devices by a variety of standard manufacturing processes, including spin coating, spray coating, and dip coating, making it easy to integrate with existing fabrication platforms. The coating the researchers used in their tests is made of polyurethane, a hydrophilic (water-attracting) material that is readily available and inexpensive, though other similar polymers could also be used. Such materials “become very strong when they form interpenetrating networks,” as they do when coated on the conducting polymer, Yuk explains. This enhanced strength should address the durability problems associated with the uncoated polymer, he says.

The result is a mechanically strong and conductive gel that bonds tightly with the surface it’s attached to. “It’s a very simple process,” Yuk says.

The bonding proves to be highly resistant to bending, twisting, and even folding of the substrate material. The adhesive polymer has been tested in the lab under accelerated aging conditions using ultrasound, but Yuk says that for the biomedical device industry to accept such a new material will require longer, more rigorous testing to confirm the stability of these coated fibers under realistic conditions over long periods of time.

“We’d be very happy to license and put this technology out there to test it further in realistic situations,” he says. The team has begun talking to manufacturers to see “how we can best help them to test this knowledge,” he says.

“I think this is a great piece of work,” says Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University, who was not associated with this research. “Wet adhesives are already a big challenge. Conductive adhesives that work well in wet conditions are even more rare. They are very much needed for nerve interfaces and recording electrical signals from the heart or brain.”

Bao says this work “is a major advancement in the bioelectronics field.”

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the JSR corporation, and Samsung.

How to get conductive gels to stick when wet syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Researchers develop unique Ag-hydrogel composite for soft bioelectronics

In the field of robotics, metals offer advantages like strength, durability, and electrical conductivity. But, they are heavy and rigid—properties that are undesirable in soft and flexible systems for wearable computing and human-machine interfaces.

Hydrogels, on the other hand, are lightweight, stretchable, and biocompatible, making them excellent materials for contact lenses and tissue engineering scaffolding. They are, however, poor at conducting electricity, which is needed for digital circuits and bioelectronics applications.

Researchers in Carnegie Mellon University's Soft Machines Lab have developed a unique silver-hydrogel composite that has high electrical conductivity and is capable of delivering direct current while maintaining soft compliance and deformability. The findings were published in Nature Electronics.

Read more.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Tissue engineering: Developing bioinspired multi-functional tendon-mimetic hydrogels

In a new report now published in Science Advances, Mingze Sun and a research team in physics, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering in Hong Kong China reported the development of multifunctional tendon-mimetic hydrogels by assembling aramid nanofiber composites.

The anisotropic composite hydrogels (ACH) contained stiff nanofibers and soft polyvinyl alcohol moieties to mimic biological interactions that typically occur between collagen fibers and proteoglycans in tendons. The team was bioinspired by natural tendons to develop hydrogels with a high elastic modulus, strength and fracture toughness.

The researchers biofunctionalized these material surfaces with bioactive molecules to present biophysical cues to impart behavioral similarities to those of cell attachment. Additionally, the soft bioelectronic components integrated on the hydrogels facilitated a variety of physiological benefits. Based on the outstanding functionality of the tendon-mimetics, the team envisioned broader applications of the materials in advanced tissue engineering to form implantable prosthetics for human-machine interactions.

Read more.