A seamless integration of biomedical devices with a human body could enable a myriad of exciting applications in the field of diagnostic, drug-delivery and smart prosthetics. Indeed, the ability to impart active functionalities such as advanced sensing, computation and drug delivery through biomedical devices could restore or even augment the complex functionalities of a naturally evolved biological system. Yet, such integration is inherently challenging due to the geometrical, mechanical and material dichotomies between conventional biomedical devices and the human body. Ingestible electronics provides an attractive means of embedding active biomedical functionalities into the human body without requiring invasive surgical procedures. In particular, the gastric environment offers an immune privileged site in the human body that can tolerate the introduction of foreign devices without eliciting life-threatening immune responses. Yet, the long-term residence of such devices is challenging due to the mechanically and chemically hostile dynamic gastric environment. Further, constrained by the limitation of conventional manufacturing, current ingestible gastric electronics lack the ability to be retained in the stomach beyond a day. Here we demonstrate an approach to prolong the gastric residence of wireless electronics to weeks via multi-material three-dimensional design and fabrication. Ultimately, the ability to create a personalized multi-functional ingestible gastric resident electronics could enable a surgical-free integration of wireless medical devices with the human body.<br/>

Additive manufacturing of ingestible gastric resident biomedical electronics

256th National Meeting (2018)

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