All-Printed Nanomembrane Sensors and Bioelectronics for Wireless and Continuous Monitoring of Vascular Health

该项目促进了对传感器力学，流体动力学，无线通信和基于打印的制造的全面理解，以克服当前植入式生物电子学的局限性，同时推进血管健康知识。准确的血流监测可以揭示患者健康的一个至关重要的状态，为临床医生提供诊断和治疗所需的信息。不幸的是，目前用于检测血流状况的方法对于多个程序是侵入性的。此外，现有的植入式系统在材料集成和电子制造方面显示出显著的知识差距，考虑到灵敏度、兼容性和无线通信，这些知识差距可以共同作为完整系统的设计指南。该项目旨在研究和理解可植入系统的力学，材料集成，打印过程和无线方法的基本工程基础。这些机械、材料和电气设计原理将为新型植入式生物电子器件提供广泛的功能和适应性基础，具有软微结构的独特优势，可增强与血管壁的接触，最大限度地减少对血液动力学的干扰，并增强无线检测质量和距离。该项目的研究结果将提高对血流动力学的理解，以解决血管疾病的广泛和重大影响。工程知识，包括材料制备，制造，设计和传感策略，将广泛适用于改善植入式电子设备和了解许多生理过程。此外，通过对各种科学知识和工程材料的跨学科理解和收获，将在科学、技术、工程和数学领域教育广泛的学生。最近，专门针对血管应用开发了各种植入式设备。然而，这些装置需要使用易断裂的桥接线，而读出距离被限制在小于几厘米。尽管有这种限制，标准程序是在血管系统中植入生物传感系统。此外，由于血管狭窄且轮廓清晰，因此所需的血液动力学监测传感器必须具有顺应性、柔软性和小型化，以便无缝植入并避免流动干扰。为了克服植入式系统中的重大知识和技术差距，该项目旨在研究和理解机械学，材料集成策略，材料加工和无源无线电子学的基本工程基础，用于植入式生物传感系统，该系统与血管无缝集成，用于连续血流动力学监测。该项目有以下研究目标，包括1）了解软微结构的高通量打印和集成，以提高生物传感器的灵敏度，2）研究无源无线传感原理和3D，高性能无线支架的多材料集成，以及3）研究生物传感系统部署和长期，多路无线传感的流体动力学。通过该项目揭示的基本原理将为新兴的植入式系统定义一个新的指南，该系统需要满足低轮廓形状因子、灵敏度、可植入性和无线性能的苛刻要求。该项目的工程基础和生物传感系统框架将推动植入式生物电子领域的发展，以监测和了解血管和心脏功能，诊断和治疗。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project promotes a comprehensive understanding of sensor mechanics, fluid dynamics, wireless communication, and printing-based manufacturing to overcome current limitations in implantable bioelectronics while advancing knowledge in vascular health. Accurate blood flow monitoring can reveal a critically important state of a patient's health, offering clinicians the information required for diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, current methods for detecting blood flow conditions are invasive with multiple procedures. In addition, the existing implantable system shows significant knowledge gaps in material integration and electronics manufacturing that can collectively serve as a design guideline for a complete system, considering sensitivity, compatibility, and wireless communication. This project aims to study and understand essential engineering fundamentals in mechanics, material integration, printing processes, and wireless methods for an implantable system. These mechanical, material, and electrical design principles will offer a broadly functional and adaptable foundation for a new class of implantable bioelectronics with distinct advantages of soft microstructures for enhanced contact to vessel walls, minimal disruption to hemodynamics, and enhanced wireless detection quality and distances. The findings resulting from this project will improve the understanding of blood flow dynamics to address the widespread and significant impact of vascular diseases. The engineering knowledge, including material preparation, fabrication, design, and sensing strategies, will be broadly applicable to improving implantable electronics and understanding many physiological processes. In addition, the interdisciplinary understandings and gains of various scientific knowledge and engineering materials will be used to educate abroad range of students in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.Recently, various implantable devices have been developed specifically for vascular applications. However, these devices require the use of a bridging wire that is susceptible to fracture, while the readout distance is limited to less than a few centimeters. Despite this limitation, the standard procedure is to implant a biosensing system in the vascular system. In addition, since blood vessels are narrow and highly contoured, the required hemodynamic monitoring sensors must be compliant, soft, and miniaturized for seamless implantation and avoiding flow interference. To overcome the significant knowledge and technological gaps in the implantable systems, this project aims to study and understand essential engineering fundamentals in mechanics, material integration strategies, materials processing, and passive wireless electronics for an implantable biosensing system that seamlessly integrates with blood vessels for continuous hemodynamic monitoring. This project has the following research objectives, including 1) understanding of high-throughput printing of soft microstructures and integration for enhanced sensitivity of biosensors, 2) study of passive wireless sensing principles and 3D, multi-material integration for a high-performance wireless stent, and 3) study of a biosensing system deployment and fluid dynamics for long-term, multiplex wireless sensing. The fundamental principles revealed through this project will define a new guideline for emerging implantable systems subject to demanding requirements of low-profile form factor, sensitivity, implantability, and wireless performance. The engineering basics and biosensing system framework resulting from this project will advance the field of implantable bioelectronics to monitor and understand vascular and cardiac functionality, diagnostics, and therapeutics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.